Callie and Rede left the town to head towards the
predestinated meeting point. Neither of them had much to do in town besides
trade a few items, so they figured they could head out early and have camp
completely set up for when the rest of their party finally came around. It was
nice and peaceful in the woods where they set up camp. Just another average,
calm day of their travelling life often filled with interesting precarious
moments. “How long has it been since we paired up?” Rede asked her while he
worked on the tents.
“Oh geez…” Calie looked over at him, “A few years at least
from when you ‘hired’ me on.” She wasn’t in any of her large plate armor as
they hadn’t any plans to be causing trouble anytime soon. Rede found it nice to
see her in more form fitting clothes.
Rede chuckled, “Turn out as stupid and boring as you first
thought it was going to?” He teased her, “What was it you told me? It was
probably a waste of time and a loss of money?”
Calie shook her head at him, “You’re never gonna let me live
that down are you?”
“Oh hells no!” Rede immediately replied, “Only since you
like it so much.”
Calie rolled her eyes and got back to work, “To be fair, it
was a pretty good waste of time the first few months. No one wants to hire just
two people for a job normally.”
“We got by well enough.”
“Speak for yourself,” Calie scoffed, “I was about getting
ready to ditch your sorry ass before we ran into Shade and Gorgos.”
“Well, glad you didn’t.” Rede smiled at her, “This party
would be lost without you.”
Callie laughed, “Oh trust me, I know.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Walker had immediately left his friends behind and headed
straight to the tavern. With a bit of luck the owner hadn’t changed in the past
few years and still owed him. As Walker flung open the doors he was surprised
to see just how busy it was in here, being as early in the day as it was.
Shrugging to himself he walked to the bar and jumped up onto one of the stools.
“Whiskey, straight.” He quickly ordered as he noticed the barkeep, pleased to
see it was the same owner.
“Right away, sir gnome-“ The barkeep stopped short as he saw
Walker sitting in front of him. His eyes lit up and he walked over smiling to
him, “Well I be damned! I didn’t think you’d ever come around these parts by
now!”
Walker chuckled, “Just passing through the area with my
friends. Honestly surprised you remember me.”
“I’d never forget the face of that gnome who saved my
family, my tavern, my life.” He patted the bar in front of Walker, “Wait right
here, sir, I’ve got something special in mind just for you.” The barkeep
quickly ran down into his cellar before coming back out not long after with a
large, dusty, auburn bottle that looked ages old. The barkeep set down the
bottle and smiled widely, “I found this gem hidden quite well in a burnt down
cabin a year after you helped me out.” He wiped off the dust from the label and
turned it to face Walker.
Walker’s mouth dropped wide open. Katak, The Legend. It was by far the rarest whiskey to ever grace
the world. There was a multitude of different rumors on who and how these
bottles were made, but the truth was that no one really knew. There was no
brewery who could lay claim to it, and no family who claim its ancestry. It
simply appeared from seemingly nowhere…and sold for exorbitant prices. Walker
slowly shook his head, “You…you can’t. I don’t-“
“Shhh.” The barkeep smiled at him, “I can, and I will.” He
told Walker, “If you hadn’t spotted that my chest was a mimic I would have lost
my life, and if not my life, it would have been the tavern followed by my wife,
in which case I would have wished for it to be my life.” He paused for a few
seconds, “They are my everything, lad, I’m not sure you understand, but-“
Walker raised his hand silencing the barkeep. He closed his
eyes and took a deep, pained breath, “No…I understand. And I would’ve paid the
same.” He bit his cheek for a short second before swallowing heavily and
opening back up his eyes while grabbing the neck of the bottle, “Thank you.”
The barkeep looked down at the gnome with sorrowful eyes,
“I’m sorry for-“
Walker shook his head, “Don’t be. It’s not your fault.” He
forced out a smirk, “Plus, I wouldn’t be so good at spotting mimics if not for
that…” Walker sighed.
The barkeep nodded at him, “Speaking of mimics…any luck
finding one of the ones you were looking for?”
Walker shook his head, “No...trails went cold weeks after I
ran into you. Now I travel with some new friends living on a small hope I’ll
run across them one day.”
The barkeep beckoned for Walker to lean over for him to
whisper in his ear, “Rumors got it that there’s a mimic in Castle Everclare
with the human king, another one sneaking around in the elven red light city of
Talama, and a third one way out in the trade capitol of Port Phishk.”
Rede nodded at him, “Hmm…no guarantee any of them will be
ones that I’m looking for, but it’s always worth a shot. I’ll ask if my party
is up for hitting any of those places. Can find good merc work in any of them.”
The barkeep leaned back, “Aye, you all could. Figured I’d do
my part to help you on your vengeance quest.” He took a deep breath, “Anyways,
shall you crack open that bottle?”
Walker smiled at him, “Pull out two glasses, at the very
least you deserve a taste of it as well, my friend.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The sky was painted with pinks and oranges by the setting
sun once Shade and Gorgos came running into camp. “What the fuck?!” Rede
screamed at them as Gorgos dropped down a pair of dead bodies behind hers and
Shade’s tent.
Shade laughed and gave Gorgos a high five, “Gorgos…you are a
LIFE saver.” He patted her back smiling.
“Okay…” Calie started to speak up with the tone of a disappointed
mother, “We put up with quite a bit of weird…and frankly fucked up shit from
you Shade…” She shook her head taking a deep breath, “Why do you have two dead
bodies?”
Shade smiled and nodded politely at her, “Thank you for
being civil about it.” She said flashing a glare over towards Rede, “I need
some parts from their bodies for potion making. Live humans are better, but
frowned upon even more. So I use recently deceased ones…it’s not like they need
their parts anymore.”
“What the hell potions do you need body parts for?!” Rede
shouted at him.
“Oh, so you won’t question it when I collect goblin ears for
potions, but now that it’s a body of your own race you care? Huh?!?” Shade
shouted right back.
“That’s not!” Rede yelled in frustration, “It’s different!”
Shade shook his head, “Racist.” She mumbled before responding,
“Part of my success is no one else knowing many of my elaborate recipes for my
concoctions. Even though you could never make any of these, I’m not about to
break that trend now.”
“Shade…” Calie shook her head, “Did you steal those bodies?”
“Pffffft!” Shade blew her off, “Don’t worry about it so
much! I’ll have taken what I needed from them in no time and will return them
right back from where I got them in the middle of the night.”
Calie brought her hands up to her face massaging her
temples, “Oh dear gods Shade…we’re never going to be able to return to this
town.”
Shade shrugged at her, “And that’s a problem because…?” As
both Calie and Rede looked at him like
he was an idiot she continued, “This town is small and honestly way out in the
middle of nowhere. We’d probably only return here if we set out to return here
anyways!”
“On a principle level though!” Rede groaned at him, “You
can’t just go stealing dead bodies!”
“I’m just taking a few parts of theirs!” Shade tried to
convince him, “It’s not!”
“Guys!” Calie got their attention, “Guys…let’s just move on
with life. Nothing we can do about it now Rede.”
Rede grumbled to himself, “Fine…fine…but DON’T do this
again.” He snapped at Shade.
“Well, I won’t have to for quite some time after this. So
you got a deal.” She faked a smile at Rede, “ No Walker yet?” He asked them.
“Not yet, no.” Calie responded.
“Hopefully he shows up soon, by far the best cook we got.”
Shade took a deep breath, “Thanks for setting up camp guys, make’s our life
much easier.”
“Yea no problem.” Rede reluctantly spoke up, “We like
setting up camp.”
“Cuz you two had sex while doing so!” Walker’s voice caught
everyone off guard as he walked into camp.
“Did not!” Rede immediately called out.
“I don’t know about that…” Shade teased him, “I’d believe-“
“You got no room to tease, Shade.” Walker cut him off as
well with a smirk, “Anyways, what’d’y’all want for dinner? I’m starving.”
Calie quickly pulled out a huge hunk of cow meat before
anyone could speak up, “Got this bad boy on sale today.”
“Hmmm…” Walker eyed it over closely, “Yea yea…that should
cook up quite nicely.” He quickly ran over to his tent and pulled out his
foldable cooking set, setting it up over the fire that Calie and Rede had
previously started. Rubbing his hands together quickly Walker licked his lips,
“A-ha!” He called out and grabbed the meat from Calie, “Got a plan.”
“So, Walker,” Rede spoke up, “You find anything exciting in
town? Shade found two dead bodies for his potion making.”
“Alchemy.” Shade snapped at him.
Walker chuckled at them, “Not directly no…” He paused for a
second, “Do we have an actual destination right now?”
“Nah.” Calie told him, “Just wandering looking for work.”
“Think we could head towards either Everclare, Talama, or
Phishk?” He asked them.
“Why…?” Shade asked.
“Might be something of interest in all three of those places
for me.” Walker admitted, “I would greatly appreciate it.”
Rede sighed, “We aren’t going to Everclare, but unless
anyone else had quarrels with one of the other cities, I see no reason as to
why we can’t. We’ll find some good work in either of those.” Everyone else
shook their heads at them “Well there we go! Guess we have a destination now,
which one would you prefer?”
Walker smiled at them, “Let’s hit up Talama. You all will
have much more fun there and I can’t say I really want to return to Phishk.”
“You come from there?” Calie asked him.
“Yep!” Walker told her, “Spent most of my life there.”
“Why don’t you want to return then…?”
“Bad memories…”Walker grumbled, “Bad memories.”
“I can respect that.” Shade nodded at him.
“Anyways, it’ll be awhile before this meat’s all cooked up.”
Walker told them as he slaved over it, “I’ll call y’all when it’s done.”
“Thanks, man.” Shade smiled, “I’d like to harvest what I
need as soon as possible.” He turned and went with Gorgos behind their tent
where the pair of bodies were.
“Where’d you learn to cook?” Calie asked him before she took
off.
Walker smirked, “Wife couldn’t cook if her life depended on
it and as a crime lord I had to host a lot of different races. I learned on the
fly, and quickly became a master chef as well.”
“You have a wife?” Calie was shocked. She had never heard of
him having a wife before.
Walker glanced over at her with pain in his eyes, “Now I
like to cook to help keep my mind occupied.”
Calie nodded respectfully at him, “I’m…”
“Don’t worry about it, Callie.” Walker grimly told her, “You
didn’t know because I don’t like to talk about it.” She sat there in silence
staring at him, “I’ll call ya when the food is ready. Rede is waiting for you
in the tent.”
“For the record we did not have sex!” She said as she slowly
stood up.
“No, but that’s what you’re going to do now.” Walker
chuckled as she stomped off towards hers and Rede’s tent.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
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