“What did he want?” Bjorn asked almost embarrassedly after he and Meira pulled away from each other.

  “Oh it was nothing truly important.” Tayla said.

  “He just wanted to thank us and told us to meet him at his palace in 5 days, and he will give up a bit of a reward.” Rickie said.

  “He also told us that they will start evacuating the camp and this area later today, and we are now free to make our way up to the surface. The only thing we have to do is everyone needs to be checked to make sure there aren’t any of those snatcher spider infiltrators left inside someone’s body.” Alaric finished explaining.

  “Did he say why 5 days from now?” Meira asked.

  Tayla moved forward and took a seat on the edge of Meira’s bed. “I think he said it had something to do with needing to organize down here before he is able to make it back up to the surface. He said there was a lot he needed to facilitate before he has some free time.”

  “What about you?” Alaric asked Meira. “When did they say you are free to go?”

  “Sometime later this evening, they said they still want to keep an eye on me and make sure I am back up to full strength. Which I already feel like I am, but you know, you follow the healer's orders.”

  Everyone but Bjorn gave a knowing affirmation at her statement.

  “So we have until this evening. What do you guys want to do?”

  “I for one.” Bjorn spoke up. “Would like to go back to our old camp. I left some things behind and would like to retrieve them if I could.”

  “I’ll go with you.” Alaric said. “I think I left a few things behind as well. If any of you left stuff behind we can collect it for you.” He looked around at the other three who all either shook their heads or told him no. “That settles that. What about you two?” Alaric looked at Tayla and Rickie.

  “I think I’ll stay here and help clean out and then break down our tent.” Rickie said. “I know that there are some support staff members who will do that for us, but I don’t want to put all of that work on them. I want to make their job easier so they too can get home to their families sooner.”

  “I’ll join you.” Tayla said, giving him an all too toothy grin.

  “And I think I’ll stay here and rest.” Meira added in with a smarmy grin.

  The other three stood to leave and as they were doing so Alaric looked over his shoulder. “It’s alright, I’ll meet you outside Bjorn. Leave you two love birds alone to say goodbye.”

  “Ass.” Bjorn called after his retreating back. He turned to Meira, bent down and gave her a quick peck on the cheek. “I will see you this evening.”

  As he started to pull away she pulled him back in for a quick peck of her own. “Sounds good, I will see you tonight.”

  Bjorn was filled with a desire to not leave. But he really did want to see if his alchemical components he left back at the old camp were still good. So instead of giving into his base instinct he instead stood and left Meira where she lay in her bed.

  He made his way out of the building to find Alaric standing there waiting for him. Together the two made their way not directly to the camp, but instead to the blacksmith. Once there they quickly collected all of their weapons and armor that they left behind. Each time they got their armor everything looked almost brand new. There was a slight issue though. Each time the armor got left behind to be repaired, the durability was returned to its maximum. But the maximum durability that the armor had was reduced by a few points. It wasn’t anything major, but given enough repairs the armor would be essentially useless.

  Once everything was all gathered they suited back up and then made their way to the old abandoned camp of Jenkins. For the most part the duo walked in companionable silence, occasionally they would talk amongst themselves. They just took in the freedom that they were finally afforded after being drafted into this army. It wasn’t a long time, but over the almost three weeks that they were press ganged into fighting had been rough. Each step they took they could feel the weight, anger, and stress being lifted off their shoulders.

  As they continued Alaric slowly started to become himself again. His mood was getting lighter, and happier. Gone was the angry, brooding, upset dwarf. In its place was the light hearted, smiling, joking, dwarf that Alaric used to be.

  It was good.

  As they traveled they didn’t hurry along their way, instead they spent most of their time just walking in the oppressive darkness, that didn’t seem so oppressive as it had once been. So it took them close to two hours to make it all the way back to their old camp.

  Upon making it there they found that most everything had been left right where it was when they last made it to camp. There was just a thin layer of fine dust that coated everything. That was one downside to living in a cave, there was almost always dust that was settling on your stuff. A portion of the duties that was assigned to Tommin’s unit was the clean away this dust that collected.

  Bjorn found where he had stashed the herbs and alchemical reagents that he had collected while they traveled to Blackrock Bay. When they made their way to meet up with the main army he had left almost all of it behind. As the collective total was surprisingly heavy, and he didn’t want to be carrying that into battle with them. Now that he had the bag of holding that was less of an issue with its weight reducing properties.

  Almost all of it had spoiled by the time they were able to make it back to camp to collect them. When he had collected them they had gone directly into his portable pocket. With its ability to stop aging he hadn’t had to worry about properly preparing them to keep. So he had expected most of his collection to be worthless now. There were a few here and there that were able to be used so those ended up back in his bag. The rest he left behind to compost.

  After he finished sorting through the pile he walked over to Alaric.

  “I didn’t actually leave anything behind.” Alaric told him the truth. “What I wanted to do was pilfer this fucking camp and take anything that is worth something. Seeing how I now have your portable pocket I think I have to put this thing to good use.” Alaric finished putting a staff into the pocket. “This thing is an amazing magical item. I think this is one of the best items we have come across so far. The only thing better is at your hip.” He made a gesture towards Bjorn’s bag of holding.

  Together the pair finished sorting through the camp and taking anything and everything that either of them found useful. It took another hour or so but as they left they were both quite happy with what they ended up taking.

  By the time they made it back to the main camp Alaric was ready for a break. So they made their way to the mess. Upon arrival they found a small meal had been prepared for anyone and everyone who wanted some. What was a surprise was they had brought down and opened a cask of ale. They were handing out drinks to anyone who wanted them, which to no one's surprise was every single person who went to the mess. They did limit the pints to two a piece, but it was a welcome surprise.

  They sat down with the light meal of bread, sliced dried meat, apples, and a nut similar to a cashew. They ate slowly and drank their ale, it was a good, hardy, hoppy ale. But after the weeks that they had to go without a single drink, and with the stress they had to go through, it was a good time all around. Although Bjorn and Alaric weren’t overly flamboyant with their meals, others were loudly talking and joking, it made the atmosphere almost jovial.

  They milked their beers and made them last a few hours, but eventually they were finished and it was almost time for Meira to be let loose as well. So they made their way over to the headquarters and made their way to her room. When they made it to her room she was sitting on the edge of her bed fully dressed and looking up at the healer they had seen earlier.

  “Now don’t overdo it out there. You have exhausted your body in more ways than one. Take it easy for around a week to make sure there isn’t any lingering effect that the battle had on your body. But other than that I think you are good to go.”

  “Don’t worry, I plan on doing nothing for a while.” She looked over and saw Bjorn and Alaric standing in the doorway, her gaze settled on Bjorn. “Well not exactly nothing.”

  The three friends once again reunited, made their way out of the building and headed to their tent. Which to no one’s surprise they found still standing with lewd noises coming from the interior.

  Sighing, Meira started to walk up to the flap, but Bjorn stopped her. “No, let them have this, they need the release.”

  “That is fine, I am just not going to listen to them.” Meira said almost accusatively.

  “I have something for that.” Bjorn said and walked up to the tent once again casting his sonic spell silence. And for the second time this part of camp was saved from having to listen to Tayla moan.

  “That is remarkable, I didn’t know you knew that spell. What school of magic is that from?” Alaric asked while Meira looked at him suspiciously.

  “It’s a sonic spell, it’s a combination magic. Here, sit and I will tell you all about it.”

  So they sat at the small table as Bjorn began to tell them all about the combination spell and where he got it. He even brought out all of the various spell books that he found inside his bag of holding when he acquired it.

  “This one belongs to the fire school of magic. These two are from the death school. And these last three are from the same school of magic that I just cast, sonic magic. When I got the bag of holding there were 8 spell books inside. These 7 plus one additional spell book which I used to learn the sonic spell silence.”

  “That is remarkable. What do they do?” Alaric asked.

  “I don’t know. Not entirely, I don’t have a high enough level in those schools of magic yet for my W.A.I.L.A. ability to tell me what exactly the spells do. I have some guesses based on their names.”

  They spent roughly an hour and a half talking about what the spells could possibly be and do based on their names. At an hour in Bjorn’s silence spell elapsed and the lewd sounds continued to fill the air. With a sigh Bjorn got up and recast his silence spell and again blessed silence fell over that area of the camp. After they finished talking about the spells they fell into more mundane topics until almost two hours after they made it to the tent Rickie and Tayla slowly made their way out of the tent. As soon as they showed their faces Bjorn dismissed his spell.

  “It’s about damn time. Either you have some impressive stamina Rickie, or Tayla you aren’t what you used to be. Getting loose in your old age?” Alaric commented as he pushed past them and into the tent. “By the gods, it reeks of sex in here. At least have the decency to let it air out before coming to get us.”

  Tayla just shook her head instead of leaning into Alaric’s taunting. “We are going to the showers, be back in a bit.”

  Alaric’s voice called out once again from inside the tent. “Please do the entire camp a favor and keep it in your pants while you are at the baths. No one wants to see the two of you fuck.”

  Rickie looked nonplussed at Alaric’s antics. Tayla on the other hand grew a wicked smile as if Alaric had just given her an idea that she couldn’t help but act upon. She grabbed Rickie’s hand and pulled him away from the tent.

  “I swear, they are all a bunch of children.” Meira groaned as they walked away, watching Tayla’s tail swish excitedly.

  “Look on the bright side. This is the first time they have been able to tease and joke like that in the last 3 weeks. I think this is an improvement.” Bjorn said.

  She turned and gave Bjorn a wan smile. “You are right of course. Come let us finish up here so we can go back to the surface. I can’t wait to feel the sun on my face again.”

  Together the three of them began packing up anything that they had in the tent. It was easy to do for Bjorn and Alaric as they both had their magical bags on their hips. Meira wasn’t able to carry her worldly possessions with her at all times, so she had to pack her pack. Bjorn and Alaric worked on getting Tayla and Rickie’s pack ready. After they finished that they began stripping the sheets off of all of the beds, leaving Tayla’s sheets in a pile by themselves. By the soaked nature of her sheets they had used her bed. The rest they took to the laundry to be cleaned.

  They then began collapsing the cots that had been their beds for the last few weeks and then moving them out of the tent. They also carried out the wooden chests that had served to hold their worldly possessions. By that time Rickie and Tayla had returned from the baths and things started to get done faster. Once everything was out of the tent they began to collapse it. They pulled the stakes that held the edges up and Rickie and Bjorn pulled down the two large center poles propping the tent up. After it was on the ground they didn’t know how exactly the tent was supposed to be folded so they left it as it was on the ground and neatly stacked all of the chests and cot frames.

  After everything was packed up they made their way to the entrance that led back up to Blackrock Bay proper. As they drew nearer they slowed to a crawl as a line had formed of people trying to make it back up to the city. It took them nearly an hour to make it to the front of the line.

  When they got there they were stopped in their tracks by 10 guards who were all a part of Gram’s personal unit. One of them spoke up. “For you to be able to leave camp you are required to strip down and prove that you are not infected by a snatcher spider. Gram is taking no chances in letting any snatcher spider through. There are two tents, one for males and one for females. You are only allowed in there two at a time. If you are uncomfortable with more than one you may enter one at a time.”

  Together the 5 of them started to walk towards the tents and they were stopped once again. “Not you two.” He said, speaking to Tayla and Rickie. “Everyone in camp knows by now that you are not infected by snatcher spiders. The little show you put on in the showers has made its rounds. You are free to go.” He stepped aside letting Rickie and Tayla past him. They walked just far enough past the guards and stopped waiting for the other three friends.

  Meira split off and went into her own tent and Bjorn and Alaric into theirs. After they stripped down and the male attendant, and both guards thoroughly inspected their bodies they were allowed to leave and continue up to the surface.

  By the time they were redressed and ready to leave, Meira was already waiting for them with the other two. So the quintet started their slow progress backup to the surface and open air. It was relatively easy to find their way upwards without anyone to guide them. All they had to do was follow the line of people and soon they were back up to the ground level.

  One thing that you miss while under the ground without realizing you are missing it, is wind. The air, while not stagnant, is never moving fast enough to even feel a light breeze. Upon stepping out into the night's sky Bjorn was filled with a sense of relief. One he didn’t realize that he needed. He stood there for a moment feeling the air slowly move past him. He closed his eyes and relished the feeling, taking deep slow breaths of the fresh air.

  He stood like that until the next person behind him pushed their way past him to get a piece of his own relief. It was enough to stir him back to the world around him and He realized he was being a dick. He had stopped directly in front of the entrance into the sewer system, blocking the way for those behind him. Stepping out of the way he walked over to where his friends had already moved to the side so they could enjoy the fresh air.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  When he first exited the tunnels he thought that it was the night sky, now that he was standing in it he realized he was wrong. It wasn’t the night sky, it was actually dusk, and on the horizon he could see just the faint glow of the sun setting.

  Without any communication as to where they were going they started to follow the crowd and soon found themselves on one of the main thoroughfares in the commercial district. It didn’t take long for them to figure out where exactly they were. Again without ever verbalizing they started to make their way back to the Glistening Goose. It was the only place they had here in town that was close to home. If they were going to spend a few days in this city getting everything settled before they left they would need a home base.

  They pushed their way into the inn/tavern. It once was a popular and loud place, with loud voices, music, and merriment all around. It was that place again. When they left the inn it had been dead as everyone was worried about the snatcher spider invasion. That fear seemed to have disappeared as the Glistening Goose was once again a hub of activity. The serving men made their way through the crowd scantily clad as they were when they first found the inn.

  A few curious eyes found their way to the door as it opened, but soon the curious eyes wandered back to their previous engagements. And once again of the 50 some odd people who were in this establishment the majority of them were women.

  They made their way over to the bar where a man they didn’t recognize stood and was busy pouring and preparing drinks for the patrons. “What can I do for you? Would you like an ale? Maybe a glass of wine? We have this new fruit mead that is just delightful.”

  “Actually, we were looking for Kent. Is he here?” Bjorn was the one to reply.

  “Yeah of course he is. He is busy helping prepare dinner though. If you want I can get him for you.”

  “That would be lovely. Thank you.” Meira said.

  The man nodded, and stood there as he waited for his last drink to pour. After it was done he set it on the bar and turned and walked through the door and into the kitchen. Soon afterwards one of the servers came up and grabbed the drink and whisked it away through the crowd.

  After about a minute they could hear Kent’s voice as it drew near the door. “What do you mean you don’t know them? And they asked for me by name? Well what did they look li-” His questions stopped just as Kent did when he rounded the door and got a good look at the 5 people standing on the other side of his bar.

  Bjorn and his friends just stood there grinning at Kent as if they were kids who just played a prank on their parents. Kent on the other hand stood there in stunned silence for a brief moment before he burst through the doorway and expertly vaulted the bar and rushed at the friends. He quickly stepped forward and started bundling each of them up in a hug.

  “I didn’t expect to see any of you ever again. What did? How did?” It seemed like his mind had a million questions that he wanted to ask, and somehow none of them came out. In less than ten seconds 6 different questions got started and abandoned half way through the question. After his sixth failed attempt he just stopped and took a deep breath. “Oh, it is so good to see all of you again.”

  Meira gave the man a warm smile. “It is so good to see you as well. We will answer any and all questions you have, but first we want a drink.”

  Kent laughed. “Of course.” he vaulted onto the bar from where he was standing and cleared his throat. The sound wasn’t particularly loud but he had trained his patrons to quiet down when they heard that noise. “These 5 people here and some of the heroes who went down into the sewers to fight for our fair town.” A few cheers echoed from a few mouths at the proclamation.

  He held up his hands quickly quieting the voices. “By the sheer fact that they are here, that means that our army was successful.” Even more cheers filled the room. “But of course you knew that. These 5 here are my friends, and to celebrate their victorious return, a free round of drinks for the room.” This time the entire room erupted in cheers. He let the roar continue for a long time letting the 5 friends who were standing at the center of attention awkwardly accepted the adoration. “If by the end of the night any one of them is sober we have failed at our job!” The loudest roar of them all filled the room as the music began to play once again.

  He hopped down from the bar and smiled at the group. He walked forward and brought them in conspiratorially. “You will never have to pay for anything in this establishment again. I just did that so that maybe you will be able to get drunk tonight on someone else’s dime and not mine.” He winked at them. “Enjoy the night, we will talk in the morning and you will give me your story.”

  With that he turned on his heels and made his way back around the bar like a normal person and into the kitchen to finish preparing the evening's meal.

  As soon as Kent walked away from them they were swarmed by a gaggle of women, and a few men. Like a dam broke the questions came rocketing out. “What was it like down there?” “Did you get injured?” “Oh you poor soul, let me buy you a drink for your troubles.” And just like that the inseparable companions got pulled in 5 different directions as they were whisked away to different tables as people tried to monopolize their time.

  One thing Kent was true to his word on was the fact that they would never have to spend a copper in his establishment again. Throughout the night they each had several different people try to buy them a drink. Of which Bjorn was grateful for, as a man, no stranger had ever bought him a drink before, it was a surreal experience. At first he accepted every single drink that was offered to him, by the 9th one he started to regret that decision. By the 12th he started to politely reject the offers for a drink.

  In many ways his body here on the Eld was remarkable. Another way that he was finding out was that with his high constitution and endurance he could handle his alcohol quite well. At least while it was normal beer. As it turned out the Eld was used to people having elevated constitutions so they had developed stronger spirits to offset that. While he was drinking the ales and wines he was doing just fine. That changed when Kent brought out a spirit that burnt like shitty moonshine as it went down. That was when the night truly turned into a rough one.

  The entire night was a bit of a blur, many names and faces flashed by Bjorn as he was drunkenly pulled this way or that way. There were moments of clarity in the night, when his mind resurfaced from its drunken haze. At one point he was sitting next to Alaric, and he had a pretty human woman sitting on his lap with her hands laced in his hair and beard. He was laughing and talking about how he lost his hand. At another point he was sitting around the table with 3 women who were playing a card game he learned while at camp.

  The last time his mind surfaced and the one he remembered the most vividly he was sitting next to Meira, her hand on his thigh as she was talking to one of Kent’s servers, he never really could tell what she was saying. But with her closeness and the warmth of her body pressed against his he was nothing but happy.

  From there he was never able to recall what happened.

  In the morning Bjorn woke up laying in a large bed. His mind groggily brought itself to wakefulness. It took a while but he eventually woke up enough to realize he wasn’t alone. In a moment of panic he lifted the sheets to see what he had done. Only to relax when he saw Meira’s lithe naked form in bed next to him. Relaxing he let the sheets drop down mostly, as something else started to lift the sheets.

  He slowly reached out and wrapped his arm around Meira’s midsection and pulled her into him. Her warm lithe body pressed into him. She stirred. “Good morning handsome.” She said in a thick, almost sultry voice.

  “Good morning.” He replied. “Did you sleep well?”

  “Better than I thought I would.” She stretched from where she lay and turned around to face him. She placed her head on his arm and looked into his eyes. Her emerald green eyes were enchanting. Unable to help himself he leaned in for a kiss.

  When they broke apart Bjorn’s curiosity got the better of him. “So last night did we?” He didn’t finish the question. By the fact that they were both naked he figured the ending to the question was very obvious. “Because if we did, I am sorry, I wished to remember our first time.”

  Meira let out a laugh. “No, no we didn’t. You were too drunk so I brought you up from the bar and stripped you down.” A lascivious look crossed her face as her hand snaked its way down. “But the day is still young, we could if you want.”

  “Yes.” Was the only word Bjorn was able to get out before Meira pressed her face into his and they started to kiss.

  Several hours later they made their way down the stairs slowly. When they got to the taproom no one was in the main room. They made their way to the kitchen where they found Kent kneading some dough while the cook fire inside the stove started to warm it up. “Ah good morning. You guys looked to have a ton of fun last night.”

  Bjorn just groaned as their morning activities didn’t help with the hangover he was feeling.

  This made Kent laugh. “Oh by the way. In the future I would advise against gambling while you are drunk. Ella and her friends were working you over quite well last night. I put a stop to it when I realized what was happening, but they took two and a half gold from you before I realized what was happening.”

  “What?” Bjorn asked as his stomach dropped. “I remember playing cards, I don’t remember that it was for money.”

  Kent solemnly nodded his head. “It was, and don’t worry I banned all three of them for taking advantage of your situation, they won’t ever set foot in my establishment.”

  “Thank you for that but you didn’t have to do that.” Meira said and she took hold of Bjorn’s hand.

  “Oh so you two finally got together. That is nice. I thought it was bound to happen last time you were here, but I guess not. Tell me about it.”

  The three of them stood around talking as Kent worked on making breakfast for everyone. After a while Alaric made his way down and the front door opened as his nightly entertainment left. Then lastly Rickie and Tayla joined.

  When breakfast was finished the 6 of them sat around one of Kent’s tables and talked. They told him every detail they could remember about what happened and their part in the war. At first they were holding back some of the more gruesome details but Kent was rather insistent and wouldn’t let it go. So after enough pushing from Kent they held nothing back. Their story took the better part of the morning to finish telling. By the time they were done it was already into early afternoon. All the while Kent was an intent listener.

  After they finished their story Kent sat in silence as he was thinking about what they had gone through. “Well I am glad you are safe. I would like to continue talking about this, but I need to get ready for the evening. I suspect there will be more of a crowd tonight as people hear about you being here.”

  “I’ll help you.” Alaric said as he got up to follow after Kent.

  “We will too.” Tayla said as she pulled Rickie to his feet.

  “What do you want to do?” Meira asked as she looked at Bjorn.

  He sat there for a moment thinking. “I think I will hunt down Alya. She deserves to know how things ended, and hopefully she is fine. I don’t know where to go to find her though. I guess we should see if there are any general hospitals or anything here.”

  “What is a hospital?”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Bjorn said as he got to his feet. He walked over to the kitchen where the 4 were busy just starting on dinner. “Hey Kent, is there a large healers house or something of the like here?”

  “Yeah, it’s in the upper circle though, it should be near the library, hard to miss.” He called back.

  “Thanks.” Bjorn called into the kitchen before heading back over to where Meira was sitting. “I am going to go start there to try and find her. You are more than welcome to join if you wish.”

  “Of course, I have nothing going on.” She said as she got to her feet and followed after Bjorn.

  They made their way out onto the street and started to navigate their way up to the upper circle. The city had mostly returned to what it had been before the spider attacks. There were people going every which way heading to whatever it was they needed to do. It was a light hustle and bustle. It was refreshing to see people going about their lives, when last time they were traveling these roads almost no one was out, only guards.

  Kent was right, it was quite easy to find. Standing right next to the public library stood a large building that to Bjorn looked like a hospital. Not one to argue semantics Bjorn made his way into the building and was greeted by a large desk directly in the foyer with several people sitting behind it.

  “Can we help you?” One of the attendants asked.

  “Yeah, we are looking for an elf by the name of Alya, she was a part of the battle effort against the spiders and had the bone in her leg melted. She is an alchemist by trade. Is she here?”

  “Alya, Alya. That name doesn’t sound familiar, do you by chance know her given name?”

  Bjorn shook his head.

  “No matter, we can see what we can find. After all we have had many people who have been admitted here, it would be surprising if I knew anyone you were asking after. Give me a few minutes to check our ledgers.” She grabbed a heavy tomb and pulled it over to her and began flipping through pages. “When did you say she would have been admitted here?”

  “Probably two weeks ago at the earliest.” Meira replied.

  She flipped back several pages and began scanning the list of names. When she reached the bottom of the second page she would flip and search again. It took her nearly 15 minutes to go from her starting page to the last page. After she finished she looked up and shook her head. “Sorry no one named Alya has been admitted here within the last two weeks. There are two other places she was most likely to have been taken. If you want I can give you directions to them.”

  “Thank you, that would be awesome.” Bjorn replied.

  It was late evening when they made their way out of the last of the healer huts that the receptionist suggested. They had tried a total of 3 different healer huts, and struck out on each of them. A little disheartened they made their way back to Kent’s tavern.

  Once there they had an evening similar to the one before, only this time Bjorn did a much better job at restraining himself and didn’t get that drunk. Kent was right though, the tavern was much busier than it was the night before. Word that they were at the Glistening Goose must have spread because there were tons of people who showed up wanting to buy them drinks or get stories out of them.

  In the end it was Alya who found them rather than the reverse. On the morning of the third day she came strolling in through the front door. Her leg, once useless now seemed to be fully repaired and she had no issues walking as normal.

  “Well well. You two seem awfully smitten with each other.” She commented as soon as she laid eyes on where Bjorn and Meira were sitting next to each other once again holding hands.

  “Alya.” Meira said as she got up from her seat and rushed over giving her a huge hug. “It is so good to see you. I had my doubts that I would ever see you again. Come join us.”

  She made her way over to their table and Bjorn got up and quickly gave her a hug. “It is good to see you, they healed your leg.”

  “That they did.” She said with a smile as she sat down. “It was about a week ago when they finally had a mage regrow the bone in my leg. Before that I was forced to sit and do nothing really. I don’t know if you know how hard it is to move around with the bones in your leg not there to provide structure to the rest of the limb. “

  “It is weird, most of the weight is still there, even if it can’t do anything. On top of that the bone also helps keep the leg in its normal shape. For almost a week and a half my right leg was actually longer than my left, most of the time. I could flex my muscles as the leg would contract making it shorter than my left. Trying to move around with it was a massive pain in my ass. I am glad that they were able to fix it. If they couldn’t I would have just preferred they cut the damn thing off.”

  “No, I haven’t had to experience that.” Meira said with a snort. “I am thankful that I didn’t have to. What have you been up to since we last saw you? I figured you would have skipped town as you aren’t from here and all.”

  She scrunched her nose. “I probably would have as soon as they fixed my leg, but they still haven’t lifted the travel restrictions. So sadly I am stuck here for another few days. Trust me, as soon as they do so I am out of here. What about you guys, tell me what all happened to you since I last saw you.”

  By that time Alaric had joined, and the three of them filled her in on the happenings of the rest of their time down in the underbelly of Blackrock Bay. As they told their story Rickie and Tayla joined. Throughout the story people would excuse themselves occasionally to go do something. The one who stayed throughout the whole time though was Bjorn. He was the one who was closest to Alya, with their many days stuck together brewing potions for Jenkins.

  At one point when it was just him and Alya he asked. “So, I do have a question for you. While I was collecting alchemical ingredients from the snatcher spider’s corpses my herb-lore skill went up and nothing else. Why is that?”

  Alya thought about it for a while and eventually settled on an answer. “Honestly. I don’t know, by the name of the skill, Herb-lore. I would think the only way to increase your knowledge in the skill would be by learning more about herbs. But my best guess is that the name of the skill is misleading. I think what really happens is that anytime you collect any alchemical component be it herbs or anything else you gain some experience in that skill. It would be more appropriate for the skill to be called Alchemical component lore or something like that. Whoever named the skill though, most likely thought that Alchemical component lore was a dumb name and went with something that sounded better.”

  “Wait. People can name skills?”

  “If you are the one who discovers it, or makes a new skill, I see no reason why you shouldn’t be the one to name the skill. I don’t know how it is made though, as I have never made a new skill, only gained ones that everyone else seems to have.”

  Alya and the crew spent the rest of the day and the night together talking, catching up and drinking. Again on the third night it was even busier than the prior two. It was getting to the point where there was almost no standing room already.

  The next day Bjorn made his way to the alchemist district in search of Skarit. It took a while but eventually he was able to find the runic. They caught up and Bjorn said his good bye, telling him that as soon as they were able to, he and his party were going to be leaving Blackrock Bay. Skarit said he was sad to see Bjorn go but he understood his decision.

  After that was done there was no one else that Bjorn really had the desire to see before they all left. So on the fourth evening they had the same type of night as the last three, but they knew this was going to be the last. Because of that Kent joined in on the festivities, as a send off to his new friends.

  On the morning of the 5th day they packed up their things and said their goodbyes. From there the 5 friends made their way up to the palace early early in the morning. By the time they made it to the palace the sun was just starting to peak over the horizon.

  When they made it to the gate they weren’t stopped, the guards ushered them inside. They were then met by an attendant who led them deeper into the palace. After several confusing turns they were thoroughly lost. It was very impressive how well these attendants were able to navigate the almost maze-like structure that was the palace. Still just as they had done hundreds of times before they were able to easily navigate the crew exactly where they needed to be.

  He led them down a large hallway that was covered in a rich red carpet and up to a rather unassuming door. He opened it to let them into an equally unassuming sitting room. It was nice, but nothing like the ornate hallways and rooms that they passed along the way.

  “If you would wait here. Duke Dornan will be with you shortly. Unless I am mistaken I believe Captain Gram will be joining him.” The attendant left them in the room and bowed to the present company before closing the door behind him.