For All the Things
The road from the outskirts of Mirabar towards the Spine of the World was well traveled. Mirabar was a mining town, and the Spine was rich in resources. The people there were rich too; the flow of gold from hand to hand was said to be akin to the flow of River Mirar itself. Yet, for Talarra, the gold did not come. The dwarves and men of Mirabar locked their doors and drew their curtains when she passed their homes. The shopkeeps scowled and shook their heads at her. Even the local taverns turned her away, claiming there was nothing that needed doing in the city. Talarra was no stranger to this sort of behavior. Her long white hair fell in ringlets and waves across her shoulders, a stark contrast to her dark grey, almost purple-tinted skin. Red eyes flashed, reflecting the light from the street lanterns. She was a Drow, a dark Elf whose race had a bad reputation in Faerûn. If this treatment bothered her, she did not show it.
A light snow began to fall as the sun set, coating the road with glittering specs of ice. She pulled the hood up of her dark violet cloak. The last tavern she questioned had shoo'd her to the west, claiming there was an inn downriver that was more her "type". As she set out, she saw a thicket of tall trees, some kind of evergreen with fanlike branches. It was dark now, and the moon hid behind thick clouds. She didn't bother lighting a torch or lantern; her lineage had gifted her eyes that could see in the dark. As she approached the thicket, she looked up, and smiled. "You can come down now." She leapt back as a medium-sized branch fell from the tree, crashing into the brush below. It was followed, more slowly, by a giant spider lowering itself on a single strand of webbing as thick as rope. This spider was the size of a large dog, and as it hung suspended, its many eyes stared unblinking at Talarra. "Don't fuss Ven, you know that me being a Drow is bad enough. If they saw you in my company, we'd have a lot more than locked doors to deal with." The spider Ven only made a couple clicking sounds, and stayed still.
Suddenly, a crossbow bolt shot from behind her pierced the tree, severing Ven's web. Talarra spun around, grabbing her bow as the spider dropped onto the ground and skittered to her side. Two dwarves and a man were approaching from the west. She fitted an arrow to her bow but before she could draw, she heard one of the dwarves shout something in Dwarven, and suddenly the thicket behind her was on fire. The dwarves and man broke into a run, closing in on her. At this distance, her bow did little good. She dropped it and drew a shortsword, elegantly brandishing it against the trio. The fire crackled behind her, casting light onto the road and the three enemies' faces. The man, who she originally thought was human, had large pointed teeth jutting out from the bottom of his mouth, which was twisted into a sneer. "Look what we have here, a pretty little underscum and her vermin companion," he jeered at her, holding his crossbow square with her chest. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
The five of them stood motionless as the firelight danced across the scene. The man in the middle of the two dwarves, who she now guessed was half-orc, didn’t take his eyes off her as he made a hand signal to the dwarf to his left. The dwarf scowled, his wrinkled brow and greying beard indicating a larger number of years to him than his other dwarven companion, who was wielding an axe menacingly, a large shield strapped to his back. The first dwarf seemed to be unarmed, except for what appeared to be a large crystal clutched in his right hand. He must have been the one who started the fire, some sort of sorcerer. Talarra noticed the crystal begin to glow as the dwarf began channeling its power. The half-orc took a step forward, and Talarra took her chance. “If you came here looking for trouble,” Talarra growled as she deftly struck the half-orcs crossbow, knocking it into the sorcerer, “you’ve found it.”
“Get her!” The axe-wielding dwarf ran forward and prepared a fierce blow at Talarra, but he had forgotten about Ven, who leapt up and sank its fangs into the dwarf’s arm. The dwarf fell back as the half-orc drew his own blade, a broadsword as wide as his own arm, and just as long. He swung his sword and Talarra parried as the sound of clashing metal rang out. Her hands stung; he was stronger than her and she might not be able to parry again before losing her grip. She would have to end this, and quickly.
“Ven!” Talarra called the giant spider, who let itself be flung away from the flailing dwarf. The half-orc swung again, and again she raised her sword to parry, but this time her sword was knocked away with the might of the half-orc’s blow. She fell back, her parry had deflected most of the attack, but the tip of the half-orc’s broadsword clipped her in the left forearm. “Shit,” she gasped as pain reverberated through her arm when she tried to move it.
The ground was muddy where the heat from the flames had melted the snow. Talarra reached for her sword again with her working arm, but the half-orc kicked it away. “You came to the wrong city, scum. Now your pitiful excuse of a life ends here. D- agh!” Suddenly Ven was upon him, the half-orc’s face obscured by hairy legs wrapped around him as Ven bit into his neck, venom flowing into his arteries. The half-orc dropped to his knees then fell over with a sick thud, blood and venom dripped from his wounds, mixing with the mud on the ground. The injured dwarf crawled over to the half-orc and exclaimed something in Dwarven, but Talarra wasn’t paying attention. Her eyelids grew heavy as she grasped her bleeding arm. Ven made some whirring and clicking sounds, then lay quiet. The sorcerer! Talarra turned in time to see the sorcerer dwarf’s eyes glowing as he cast his spell, before her eyes closed and she slumped over, fast asleep.
“No!” Talarra woke with a start. She had been having a bad dream about a strange blond man and a river. The sound of the rushing water slowly faded from her mind as she sat up. The sun was shining; it was probably around eight o’clock in the morning. Other than the scarred trees and sooty brush, all signs of last night’s incursion were gone. She reached for her injured arm, and found it bandaged. She tried moving it up and down, and flexed. There was no pain, though she felt a bit weak. Someone, probably whoever had bandaged her arm, had also laid out her bedroll, placed her on it, and covered her with a blanket from her pack. Her bow and shortsword lay by her side. She looked through her things, the only other thing that looked like it had been touched was her first aid kit; the bandage had been hers. “Ven?” Talarra called, her spider nowhere to be seen. She listened, but there were no crashing branches or Ven clicking to scold her. It was unlike it to go wandering off. It usually had to be commanded to make it leave her side, and that only worked half the time.
Talarra rolled up and packed her bedroll, and took out a bit of dried venison to eat for breakfast. She wasn’t too fond of the taste; it was a bit like chewing on old leather, but it was fast to prepare and eat, and she needed to be fast now. She felt the strong sensation that time was not on her side, if she wanted to find Ven. The mud where the fight had taken place was too messy to find any clues, and after searching the perimeter of the thicket, she found no trace of Ven. She did find a single pair of bootprints heading from the thicket on a path towards the road. With no other lead, she followed them until they met the road, where they became lost amidst the other prints of travelers and traders heading to and from Mirabar. She didn’t care to go back to the city. Even if someone had seen Ven, they wouldn’t tell her. And she shuddered to think what the city guard would do to Ven if they found it. She followed the road west.
The sun glared overhead. It was warm despite winter’s icy fingers spread across the northern lands. Talarra preferred winter. She wasn’t overly excited about the cold, though she didn’t mind it, but she enjoyed the short daylight hours and long nights. She thought about the Underdark, her birthplace, though it had been over a hundred years since she had last been. She remembered the secret tunnels she had found below her home as a young child, and the many hours each day spent playing in them, pretending to command the small lizards and spiders she found there to do her every bidding. If one disobeyed, as wild creatures were wont to do, the unlucky found themselves on the bottom side of a large rock. Briefly, her abduction crossed her mind, and she frowned. She hadn’t left the Underdark by choice, but once on the Surface, she saw no reason to go back. Her family probably didn’t notice she was gone; she had seen her mother so rarely she didn’t even remember what she looked like. Death and missing people were no strangers to her society. When her older brother was killed in a quarrel with an ambitious “friend”, the only remarks were that it was a shame such weakness originated in House Despana. Now, here she was strolling down a Surface road in broad daylight, searching for a lost beloved companion. What would her mentor say if he saw her?
Laughter rang out, a man’s hearty, deep, booming laugh. Talarra blinked and looked around, but there was no one else she could see on the road. She had been walking as if in a trance. It was noon; the sun was directly overhead now. The sunlight was beginning to give her a headache. There was no shade in sight, most of the trees having lost their leaves already. The sound of running water met her ears long before she found the bridge crossing what she supposed was an inlet of the river Mirar. The bridge was large and made of stone, probably about 25 feet across, and 200 feet long. Two merchant’s wagons would be able to cross side-by-side comfortably. It sloped up in the middle, obscuring her vision of what was on the other side. As she crossed, a very large, rambling, four-story, wooden building on a stone foundation came into view off the northern side of the road. As she got closer, she saw a stable across from a fenced-in field filled with yellow grass and bleating sheep that bordered the river. Tall leafless birch trees dotted the land behind the building, and a dirt path wound beside the building into the forest and out of sight over a hill. In front of the main building, chickens scurried around, pecking at the muddy yard. A sign hung from a lamp post near the path leading to the building, naming it the Golden Goose Inn. A larger sign hung somewhere between the second and third story, depicting a large ugly white goose on the right, and a nest of golden eggs on the left, with “The Golden Goose Inn” written in flowing yet faded green letters in the middle.
Further down the road, a man was riding a cart pulled by an ox, his goods covered in a leather tarp. A very large woman wearing a fur lined apron called out from the doorway of the inn, and the man waved. The woman ducked back into the inn, not seeming to notice Talarra’s approach. Talarra enter the yard and walked up to the porch. The building loomed over her, and she pushed away the feeling that she was stepping into the mouth of a giant monster ready to consume her. The shade was welcome, at least. The porch had a couple wooden tables with wooden chairs scattered around them. She picked the chair and table closest to the doorway and sat down. By the multitudes of voices and clinking dishes coming through the walls and doors, business was booming.
The large woman ducked out again holding a basket so large it barely fit through the doorway. The woman herself also seemed to barely fit. Talarra would only come up to her chest in height, and the woman was thick with muscle, twice and a half as wide as a regular human woman. Her dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail, exposing strange purple tattoos on the sides of her head in stark contrast to her pale ashen-colored skin. She passed Talarra without acknowledgement, and it was only when Talarra quickly said “Excuse me,” that the woman realized she was there, jumping and dropping the basket. Skeins of wool rolled around as the woman hastily picked them up and threw them back into the basket.
“You startle Parvi. You are like shadow, this one did not even see or hear you come to Inn. Give Parvi moment, and she will be right with you.” Talarra blinked before realizing the woman was referring to herself. Parvi had finished gathering the wool and was carrying the basket to the man with the ox-cart who had stopped on the road in front of the inn. They began haggling and Talarra frowned. Time was wasting, and she still did not know where Ven was, or if it was even still alive. She drummed the table with her fingers in aggitation.
It was Talarra’s turn to jump as a deep gruff voice shouted from the inn. “Parvi! Make sure you get good ones this time, the last damned batch had to be thrown out after a week!” Parvi showed no indication of having heard him. Muttering and cursing, a man stepped out from the inn. He did not see Talarra’s shocked expression or her hand move instinctively to the hilt of her shortsword as he strode down to where Parvi was now comparing and weighing different pumpkins. The man was a full-blooded Orc, his dark dull green skin contrasting with the yellow fields and blue sky around him. Yet, he had no weapons on him. That she could see anyway, she reminded herself. He was wearing what appeared to be a chef’s garb, complete with an apron and an oversized chef’s hat. He and Parvi walked back towards the inn, the orc with a pumpkin under each arm and Parvi’s basket overflowing with red apples. The orc noticed her on his way back to the inn. His eyes widened but he said nothing as he passed.
Parvi stopped in front of Talarra and placed the basket down with a loud thud. It must have weighed over two hundred pounds, yet she had carried it with ease. “Parvi get last apples of year, lucky trade! Now, what did you want, Shadewalker?” This woman was no human, but what exactly she was, Talarra didn’t know, and didn’t ask.
Talarra stood up and looked up directly into Parvi’s eyes, and asked “Have you seen anyone with a giant spider around this inn? They would have come from the east.”
Parvi scratched her head, thinking. “No, no traveler from east with giant spider. Only miner come from east, but they do not stay at Golden Goose. Miner keeps going, to Spine. Many riches there, no time to stop at Inn until they return with full cart.” Talarra studied Parvi’s face. The large woman would not look at her when she said this. She was hiding something. Talarra was about to say so, when a man from the doorway cleared his throat.
“Excuse me, ladies,” he said with a wink. He was a Human, with messy blond hair but a cleanshaven beard. He was wearing dark leather armor and a green cloak. Talarra and Parvi were blocking the doorway, so they moved to let him pass. After he walked down the stairs of the porch, he turned around and while looking at Talarra, said “Give my regards to Nym!” He turned, raised his arm in farewell, and left, heading east across the bridge.
“Who was that? And who is Nym?” Talarra asked Parvi.
At this, she was surprised when a large grin spread across Parvi’s face. “Now this is question Parvi can answer.”
“Can? You mean you couldn’t answer the other one?” Talarra interrupted, but Parvi ignored her.
“That one,” Parvi pointed to the bridge. “He is regular to Inn. Does job for coin. Parvi think he on job now. Parvi call him Honeyspeaker. He is not minding this name. Other one,” she paused, her eyes running up and down Talarra’s small dark figure. “Like you, Shadewalker. You are dark Elf, yes? That one lives alone in house at end of path.” She pointed past Talarra to the dirt path snaking its way past the left side of the inn. “Parvi call that one Secretkeeper.”
“Like me?” Talarra sat down, astonished. She had never met another Drow on the surface, and her curiosity got the better of her. She knew Drow couldn’t be trusted; that they were dangerous and cruel. But if this Drow really was like her, maybe she could talk to them and form some sort of bond or companionship, or at least provide new insight. They also might know how to find Ven. She thought of her spider and her expression hardened. “How long is the path?” she asked Parvi.
“Ah, you go to meet Secretkeeper, yes? That one does not like to be bothered, but Parvi can give Shadewalker parcel for deliver. Secretkeeper will give you parcel in exchange. You bring back to Parvi, and she let you stay at Golden Goose free of charge. One moment. Bearflayer! Bearflayer! Bring parcel for Secretkeeper to Parvi!”
A symphony of clattering pots and pans accompanied by a chorus of cursing followed. “Dammit woman, you have working legs too…” It was the Orc from before, and his voice trailed off as he saw Talarra. He nodded as he acknowledged her, and lowered his voice. “Ah.. this will be for Nym, then. Keep to the path; I didn’t get the nickname Bearflayer for nothin’. There’s plenty of them around. Make sure you finish the exchange and if you’re not back in four hours,” Parvi coughed and gave him a look. “Alright, alright... six hours, we’ll send someone after you. And don’t you even think about opening that package. If a single one goes missing…”
Talarra took the small paper-wrapped package, its contents clinking as she placed it carefully in the bag on her hip. “I’ve never failed a job before, and I don’t plan to now.” At this, she walked to the edge of the porch near the path, dexterously jumped over the railing, and headed up the path. Bearflayer looked questioningly at Parvi, who only smiled, and walked back through the doorway of the Golden Goose. He sighed, and followed her inside.