As Taras walked through the muddy and darkened streets, he thought of what that old man had told him earlier. ‘Curse him for his oddly specific yet confusing prophecies. I won’t be able to get the truth, because the person with it is now dead. Or will I?’ he thought, as he reached into his breast pocket and brought out the little orb.
It was a golden orange color, and was hard, like glass. It seemed to glow, even with the darkened sky above. He knew the woman was holing it before she died, so it was most likely involved in what had just happened. ‘I’ll need to find her body later, if it’s still there, and see what clues I can find. As well as go back down into the sewers.’ Taras thought, ‘I also shouldn’t tell those two just yet, in case something goes wrong they may be in danger if they know anything.’
As he was nearing the crooked back alleys where Felton had told him the Tavern was, he heard the sound of shouting and breaking wood. He saw light coming from a relatively newer looking building with a sign out front saying “The Oaken Gable”. Taras quickly walked over to the door, wondering if Felton was there yet.
Just as he opened it, he was knocked flat onto the street. He looked up to see a full-grown man passed out on top of him. It felt like there was an Arachnea on top of him (He had never even seen one before) and he struggled to get out from under the man before he passed out.
While he was lying there, he heard a voice from inside yelling, “I’m gonna kill yew little girl!” It was followed by a loud grunt, as Taras saw another large, burly, man fly over him and onto the other side of the street. The man got up and rushed back inside, stepping on both Taras and the first man. The first man, coming to his senses, rose from Taras, stepping on his stomach in the process. That made him mad, and he also jumped back up to give them a piece of his mind, but then was immediately knocked back down by a flying chair.
‘Yep, this is the Tavern, and yep, that’s definitely Minerva.’ He thought to himself through the pain.
Almost as soon as it had started, the fighting stopped, and four men came out, two of them supporting another who looked injured. They slowly hobbled down the street, looking like veterans of a war. Taras got up onto his feet, still woozy from getting the air knocked out of him.
“Yeah that’s right, get out and stay out you filthy cucks!” a voice shouted.
“Minerva, could it kill you to be a little bit gentler with people?” Taras asked his sister, who was standing in the midst of the carnage inside.
“Shut up dumbass, do you want some too?” Minerva said with her fists still glowing misty white.
“Ehh, nah I’m okay thanks, I already got enough from that chair you threw at me earlier.”
“You’re welcome.”
Taras looked around, and seeing two women slowly get up from behind the counter, he hung his head in despair.
“Damnit Minerva, you know using magic without a license is against the law, right? I don’t know how many times I’ve told you this, and here you’ve done it again. Plus, except from those guys, we have two more witnesses to your crime.”
“Well those guys won’t say anything, because they don’t want to say they were beaten by me.”
“I know that, but I was talking about those two.” Taras said, pointing to the bar. There was an older and a younger woman, who had roughly the same features. Taras guessed they were mother and daughter, but didn’t care to ask.
“Ummm, oh. Sh*t!” Minerva exclaimed.
“Is this girl your sister? If so, we owe her one, so don’t worry about us telling the guard.” The older woman spoke up with a heavy Northern accent.
“Huh?”
Taras looked back at Minerva in disbelief, wondering what his usually up-to-no-good sister had done.
“Those men were harassing my daughter, so we have no reason to be mad that she drove them out.” The woman said.
Taras looked down, and seeing the playing cards he new what had most likely gone down. He looked toward Minerva, who averted her eyes in embarrassment.
“Ha! So you do care about other people sometimes.” Taras teased Minerva. He ended up getting another chair to the face.
After he recovered, Taras helped the two women and Minerva clean up the Tavern. He swept up the broken chairs, while Minerva mopped up spilled drinks off of the floor.
The moment they were finished, Minerva tugged Taras’ sleeve, leading him off to the side.
“If you could, could you please not tell the old man that I was in here gambling? I know that you know.” She asked.
She was right, Taras had already known about her habits for a while, but he also knew how good she was at it, so he had never said anything to Felton about it.
“Yeah, but he may already know, it’s so obvious. You’re using the money to buy those books in that sack of yours, right?”
Minerva looked away, her face red. She was about to say something, but was interrupted.
Right then, the door swung open and a figure, dripping wet from the rain, came stomping in.
“Hey, good job kid, you found Minerva.” Felton said, wiping off his face.
“Speak of the devil..” Minerva whispered, and started to move away slowly.
“Not so fast, you always go off by yourself doing God knows what and causing trouble. You’re going to sit with Taras and me and have dinner here.”
“Ugh..”
Taras then remembered the events from earlier and said “Yeah you should, to make up for abandoning me in the sewers this morning.”
“Uh, okay. Just for a little while.” Minerva sighed, and sat down.
Taras sat down as well, while Felton went to the bar.
“Hey, they saw you gambling too, what if they tell him?” He asked.
“They won’t, I already talked to them about it.”
“When?”
“While you were tossing those chairs in the alley, you idiot. Plus, you know how dense the geezer is most of the time.1 Like right now he doesn’t know there was a fight in here even though there are still bloodstains in the doorway”
“Yeah my blood”
“Hey you two, for some reason they have a free food special today, so we’re all getting barley soup.” Felton said as he came back to the table.
‘Yeah, right on the dot.’ Taras thought.
“So, onto business. Taras did you find out what those two men who tried to steal the body were doing? I’m guessing it had something to do with why you ran off so suddenly. Or was it the fact about the new nun?” Felton asked.
“No, I didn’t find out anything. The church was deserted when I got there.” Taras lied. He had already promised himself he wouldn’t bring Felton or Minerva into what had happened until it was necessary.
“Wait, hold up! What is this about a body? And what does it have to do with a nun?” Minerva asked.
“You don’t need to worry yourself over it, you were the one who chose not help Taras with the job.”
“But…?”
“Nope.”
Taras tapped her foot under the table and mouthed ‘I’ll tell you later’.
“Ahh, but that’s disappointing that you couldn’t find anything. Those two were the first in a long time that gave me any trouble.” Felton had a faraway look in his eyes when he said that, as if he was remembering something from a dream.
Taras waited, for this may have been the first time he could hear about Felton’s life before he found him as a boy, but no luck, as the barmaid came with bowls of soup on a platter.
While they were eating, Felton suddenly perked up. “Hey I just remembered something. I think it had to do with the Lord needing to talk to us tomorrow morning, but I didn’t really listen to the details, because it didn’t seem important.”
“Not important!!” Taras exclaimed, “The way you don’t think Lords are important is the reason we’ve been run out of five cities already! We absolutely have to visit.”
“Alright alright…..”
“Ummm, what are we going to wear? You both look like beggars and I’m not much better.” Minerva asked.
Taras realized they had nothing.
“We actually do have some nice clothes.” Felton said.
“Where?” The other two asked in unison.
“Ah, with the horse.”
“YOU LOST THE HORSE YOU DAMNED GEEZER!!!” They yelled in unison, making the tavern waitress jump.
“Haha, that was a joke, just a joke, I’ll find them; they’re in my bags somewhere.”
That night the owner had a few empty rooms, and let them stay as thanks for Minerva clearing the men out. Felton found out and scolded her for a while, until he realized the free rooms were worth it and gave up.
