Elwen the Conquered

The town of Derring was surrounded by a stone wall, albeit a rather short one at around eight feet tall. There were a few guard towers located along the wall, staffed by a watchful guardsman. Elwen noticed that about half of the towers were left unmanned, most likely to conserve manpower. Some of the towers, however, appeared damaged, with large cracks in the structure. Some even had the top section of the tower collapse, rendering them unusable. The wall itself was in similar condition, with wooden planks crossing sections of the wall in an attempt to cover a hole.

The gate was a little small, but it seemed to be in good condition. It was about seven feet wide, enough to fit a carriage through. There were towers on both sides of the gate, hidden behind the palisade, but there was no one in them. Presumably, the two guards at the entrance would man them after sealing the gate, if the need arises.

The guards were slowly checking the adventurers before them, either collecting a toll for entry into town after confirming they wouldn’t be a danger or accepting some papers, though she didn’t know what they were. Perhaps some form of identification? Players don’t spawn with any identification; they need to register in one of the kingdoms or otherwise obtain a form of ID.

NPCs usually didn’t carry any either, as far as she knew, unless they were using it for a specific purpose. So perhaps they were an entry permit of some sort? If so, it would be useful to acquire, if it allowed them to avoid paying the toll. They could also avoid paying if they were a citizen of the town, but they wanted to settle in a more affluent area. Varian was even talking about making his own kingdom one day.

As Elwen was finishing her thought, the last person before them was through, and now it was their turn. When they got closer, she was able to get a better look at the guards. Surprisingly, their armor was relatively clean and well-maintained. She had expected, based on the state of the wall, that the guards would be in similar condition. Sure, the men themselves looked somewhat scruffy and tired, but their equipment was almost nice.

The guard looked at the two of them, glancing over their equipment and weapons before barking, “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

Their armor may be nice, but the men contained within apparently aren’t.

“Ah,” Varian responds, “I am Varian, and this is my companion, Elwen,” gesturing to her “We are adventurers, and we were hoping to find some work in town.”

The guard narrows his eyes, staring at Varian. “You sure you aren’t part of the thieves guild?” He growls.

Varian returns the guard’s stare, will a slight smirk on his face. “Of course not, would a thief show you his face before trying to steal from you?”

The two continue their staring match for a few seconds, before the guard relents. “Bah! I suppose not,” he said, suddenly cheerier than before, “But be careful, the guild has been a lot more active recently.” He looks away for a moment, angrily muttering “Damn thieves, just you wait till I get my hands on you…” His eyes jolt back up to Varian. “Sorry about that. You two can go ahead now. Ah, but you still have to pay the entry tax, one silver, each.”

Varian reaches into the coin pocket tied to his belt, grabs two of the smaller silver coins and hands them to the guard. “Tell me, what’s this thieves guild? What sort of problems are they causing for the town?” He inquires, smelling opportunity.

“Ah, I don’t really know what they’re up to. They call themselves ‘Broadrick’s Reavers’ or something like that. They’ve been messing with some of the shops around town, breaking and entering, robbery, what you would expect from thieves. What’s weird is that some of the stores didn’t even have anything stolen. I guess they didn’t find anything valuable enough to steal that they could find a buyer for.” The guard shrugs, before continuing, somewhat more angrily “Worst of their crimes is their sabotaging of the town defenses. We got holes in the wall, and half the towers are unusable.”

“I see, who can I speak to for more information about their… removal?”

“Hmm?” The guard looks confused, before scratching the back of his head and nervously laughing “I guess I didn’t introduce myself. I’m Xavier Warden, Captain of the Guard for Derring.” He offers a handshake to Varian “I’m probably the most qualified person to talk about them in town.”

Varian reaches out to shake his hand “Nice to meet you. I’m Varian, Varian Shadowstorm, although I suppose I’ve already introduced myself.”

“U-um… I-I’m E-Elwen!” She says, biting her tongue. Not the best introduction, but she was always nervous around strangers, which is why she wanted Varian to do the talking. She quickly ducked behind him once she was done.

Varian continues “As I was saying, we are adventurers. Perhaps we might be able to assist with this thieves guild problem?”

“You’d be willing?” Captain Xavier looks shocked “I guess I can pay a gold drake for each of their heads you bring me, and three big ones for their leader.” He paused, grimacing “On second thought just bring me their tags” he reached into one of his pockets and pulled out a small iron plate with a skull on top of a pile of coins. “Each of the gang members seems to carry one of these, usually around the neck. It’s some sort of proof of membership for the group. The leader has a dagger with the same sigil on it. Bring it to me and I’ll know you got the bastard.” He puts the plate back in his pocket. “Although you two might want to get some better equipment. You look like you would hold up well in a fight, Varian, but your girlie there doesn’t. Wouldn’t want anything to happen to her.”

Varian nods, “Any idea where their hideout is? Or where we might find them?”

“From what we’ve seen, they come from the same way you came. That’s actually why I’m here, that and our lack of manpower,” he grumbles, “there is a forest about eight miles down the road. I figure their hideout’s likely somewhere in there, I just don’t have the men to go over there and check.”

Varian grins, probably plotting some scheme to take out the thieves. “Thank you for your time, Captain. I’ll let you know if we manage to take any of them out. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’ll be going.”

“Happy hunting!”

The two ‘adventurers’ pass the gate, entering the town. As they walked down the main street, they passed several stores. Varian noted the positions of important places, like the blacksmith, the armorer, and the guard house. Elwen noted the positions of important places, like the bakery, the clothing shop, and the confectionery. It looked like they were making some sort of hard candy. Hopefully a town specialty, she was sure it would taste good.

Eventually, they made their way to the local inn, The Boar’s Rest, and inquired about the cost of a twin room.

“Two silver dragons a night, meals are four silver drakes.”

Varian paid for the room, and Elwen the meal. Pooling their money together, they now had eight large silver coins, the silver dragons, and two of the smaller variety, the drakes, which they decided Varian should keep. They had enough money to last two more days, so they needed to find a source of income, quickly.

“You’re not thinking about trying to take on those thieves, are you?” Elwen asked.

“It would be a good source of money, but no. We don’t have enough information right now. It would be too risky.” Varian pondered “If there really are a bunch of thieves, the idea of finding a merchant to escort might be a good idea. The merchants are probably scared of having their goods stolen, so not only will they want guards, but they might be willing to pay more too.”

Just then, a group of adventurers burst through the door, crying bloody murder about being attacked on the road to the next town over. A round man entered shortly after.

“I’m not going to pay you if you failed to get me to Redding, you incompetent imbeciles!” the man said.

Varian smirked “I think I’ve found our mark.”

Elwen tilted her head to the side, “You want to help that man? But he seems kind of mean?”

Varian shook his head slightly and sat down at a small table, “Not him. Look at the girl behind those men, next to the door.”

She sat down with him and turned her attention back to the group of adventurers and saw a little girl looking doe-eyed at them. She clearly wanted something from them, as she kept shifting her gaze between various groups around the room.

“She looks too young to be here by herself. She probably got separated from whoever was with her, and came here to get help,” Varian glanced at several groups of men sitting at tables around the inn, “But from the looks of it the adventurers in town rejected her request.” He returned his attention to the girl, “She’s also wearing rather nice clothes, at least compared to what I saw on the street. I’d wager she from some wealthy family.” As he was talking, a waitress brought them their food, a sort of tavern soup with various bits of meat and vegetables in it, as well as some bread. Varian tried a spoonful, before continuing, “She might not have much money on her, but her family would pay to have her returned safely.”

Elwen nodded, mulling over his words as she also tried the soup, before quickly putting down the spoon. It was disgusting. Looking around, she saw that all of the other patrons had drinks, but no soup. This inn must have a reputation for bad food; she wished they had asked around before paying. They could have gone to that bakery they saw, surely it would have good bread, at least. She knew that artisan breads could be delicious, and since this world doesn’t have modern manufacturing, all the bakeries must make their own bread. Therefore, they were artisanal bread, and delicious! Despite the terrible food she had to eat, they didn’t have enough money to waste any food, happy thoughts filled her head.

“Maybe that bakery makes cookies too!” The bakery at the supermarket back home baked free cookies every morning, so maybe that one did too!

“Hmm? What do cookies have to do with bandits? Wait, are you even listening?” Varian questioned her, sounding a bit annoyed.

Elwen shrinks at his questioning. “I-I’m sorry!” She says, with tears in her eyes. She didn’t mean to ignore him, but she was too delighted with the thought of good food that she stopped listening.

“As I was saying,” Varian continued, “The starting areas are supposed to be mostly safe, so the population of bandits should be relatively low, and the ones that are here should be low enough level that I can take them on. The only real threat is that thieves guild, if they have started openly attacking travelers on the road, it might be a problem.”

Elwen was listening carefully to his words, trying to make it up to him for ignoring him. He was, after all, trying to share his plan to secure money for their living expenses.

“So,” he continued, “I think we should see what that girl wants, the reward for helping her will probably be able to support us, at least in the short term, depending on how wealthy her parents are.”

“It would at least be good to talk to her,” she agreed, and the two of them stood up and moved towards the girl.

When they reached her, Varian looked down at her, slightly smirked, and said “Hey there little girl… what are you doing here?”

“Eeek!.... Hick… hyuck…waah” The girl instantly starts crying.

“V-Varian!” Elwen exclaims, moving to comfort the girl, “You’re scaring her!” She scolds, now standing on her knees hugging the girl. Ben was always bad with kids, but she didn’t remember it being this bad. He probably looked like a giant looking to eat her for dinner to the poor girl.

“I’ll talk to her, you go… do something else,” she says, shooing him away.

“There, there” she turns her attention back to the girl, patting her on the back, “it’s all right the nasty man won’t hurt you.”

Varian was moping about, slowly moving away, but froze at her words, definitely hearing her. He almost turns back towards them, but decides against it and continues his moping.

Once the girl calmed down enough, Elwen asked her what was wrong.

“My mom…” She says between sniffles “left me…”

“Your mom left you?” Elwen repeats, rubbing the girl’s back to comfort her. “Do you need help getting back to her?”

“Hyuck… yes…” the girl says, and the verge of crying again.

“Don’t worry,” Elwen says as she embraces the girl, “I’ll help you find her.”

“…Really?”

Elwen separates from the girl, but keeps her arms around her “Of course, I’d be happy to!” She says, giving the girl a bright smile.

“I’m Elwen,” She introduces herself, “and the big meanie you met earlier was Varian. What’s your name?”

The girl laughs, “I’m Cira!” she says, between giggles.

“Nice to meet you!” Elwen says, patting the girl on her head. “Do you know where you live, Cira?”

“Mhmm” Cira nods “I live in a big blue house…”

Elwen could hear Varian groan at those words. Her answer clearly wasn’t specific enough.

“Do you know where it is?” Elwen asked.

“Umm…” the girl looked troubled, “My mom uses downstairs as a shop! She has customers come over all the time!

“So it’s a shop, huh?” Elwen thought the girl was adorable. Even though she was only a young child, she could speak in (mostly) coherent sentences. “Do you know the name?”

The girl tears up again, and Elwen pulls her in for another hug.

“No…” the girl cries into her ear.

“It’s alright, we’ll find your mom. Don’t worry.”

They stayed like that for a few minutes, until Cira calmed down.

“Do you have a place to stay for the night?” Elwen asks. It was already late, and even if they set out now, there was no guarantee that they would be able to find Cira’s family before nightfall.

“…no…” the girl responded in a quiet voice.

“That’s okay, you can just stay with me!” Elwen declares, giving the girl a bright smile. They would just stay in the twin room they had just taken, and Varian would stay in another.

 

After banishing Varian from their room and exiling him to the other side of the inn, Elwen helped Cira get ready for bed. She tucked her in and sang her a lullaby, gently stroking the girl’s head until she fell asleep. Once her breaths became slow and smooth, Elwen gently crept away, being careful not to wake her, and quietly opened the door.

She didn’t have any pajamas, so she decided to sleep in just her underwear, figuring that she could at least avoid sleeping in the dirt her clothes accumulated through the day. She did, however, want to at least clean up in the shared bathroom of the inn.

Although, she was disappointed when she reached the bathroom; there was no bath, just a bucket with cold water and a few washcloths. The room also had a simple wooden toilet and another, small bucket next to it. In her opinion, the room could use a deep cleaning, although she pitied the one who had to do the job. The floor was filthy, and she tried to stay as close to the door as possible, where it was a little cleaner. She quickly washed herself off and replaced her clothes, wanting to get out of that room as quickly as possible.

Once she was back in the room, she checked on Cira one more time before getting into the other bed. The day was a long one, and she was happy to finally get some rest. The bed was rather uncomfortable, and she was sure that she would feel it in the morning, but for now, she was just glad to lie down. Within a few minutes, she found herself falling into the dreamland, having pleasant thoughts of her new life with Varian.