“I’m thirsty. Bring me a drink,” I whined, followed by gravelly, raspy noises.

“No. This is taking long enough as is,” muttered a voice in front of me. His breath assaulted my nose in waves, moving back and forth in time with the creaking of what I guessed was a chair. At his closest, I could feel the hot stank of it against my lips. So, I did what any normal person being interrogated would do. When he swung close again, I licked him, his moustache caressing my tongue.

Before I could savour our connection, I was forcefully flung backwards. I felt the chair skid roughly across ruts in the floor before reaching a smooth section and finally toppling onto its back. With my extremities bound I was like a legless turtle, unable to brace for impact. My head jolted painfully against the floor. I recognised the sweet caress of concrete.

The light filtering through the gaps under my blindfold had weakened when I was thrown back. It seemed as though most of the lighting in the room was coming from the ground directly beneath where my chair was located.

A throat was cleared in that meaningful kind of way that says “pick up your mess before I count to three”. Then, I heard angry mumbling as feet stomped towards me, and the back of the chair was grabbed and hauled upright. Instead of leaving me there, I was dragged back into my original place, the light returning to its usual intensity. Seeing as pushing my luck was working so well for me, I decided to continue.

“So about that drink. You felt how dry my tongue-”

He hocked and spat. I felt the wet glob of it splatter against the side of my nose and slowly ooze down towards my lip. I shuddered and tried not to gag.

“Drink that.” Nope.

“But when I get too thirsty it feels like my organs are hurting.” I spoke out the side of my mouth so I didn’t encourage his little gift to slide any faster.

“All the more reason to hurry up.” There was now added sass in his voice.

“OOOOooooOOOOhhh, MY OVARIES!” I flailed my head about, trying to shake the drool in a new direction or wipe it on my shoulder. Considering my lack of arms, I was surprisingly successful.

“Enough.” It was the deeper voice from before, he’d been silent for a while. “Give him some water.” I heard the suckle of his pipe once more. “Time makes no difference, he is here until he gives us the whole truth, and the Rune is already making sure he does.”

So, I was right, the bursts of agony were from a Truth Rune that must be underneath me, and with those strange ruts in the concrete I suspect that it was carved into the floor. I’d been here for a while now, how were they powering it? The only light had been seeping in from underneath, and that was from the Rune, so I had to be inside. Only large, expensive, and permanent structures were built using concrete. This was beginning to seem more professional than I had imagined.

I was snapped out of my thoughts by the feeling of a glass being thrust against my lips as water was forcibly poured down my throat. I had to drink like a suffocating fish to stop myself from drowning.

“I’m glad... Daddy... made you... play nice.” I said between gasps for air. I needed to stay calm, make sure they didn’t realise that I was shitting bricks.

“Different child I’m afraid.” I heard the soft snort of someone who was a little too pleased with themselves before he continued “Back to the story.”

Different? How many of them were there?

I heard the snapping of impatient fingers.

“Alright, don’t get too excited, I’m more than happy to talk after your show of hospitality.” I straightened myself up to get more comfortable for things going forward “Should put in a few drops of lemon next time.”

---------------------

So, today I would be dealing with some less than savoury people, more tart than anything. That meant getting up at less than reasonable hours, I’m talking like 11:30 here. I began my day with the soft and sweets though, and a trek to Rosie’s Tea House where I would set everything up for the meeting with Ra at midday. I could work my way up to the crazies.

The Tea House was in the middle of the Guild’s Merchant Quarter. It was a portion of the grounds where a bunch of travelling merchants chose to set up shop, it’s just that a number of them chose to never leave. Others followed suit and it grew from there. To draw attention to their businesses, a few stores had laid down large slabs of quartz out front and engraved them with eye-catching Light Runes. In an attempt to outdo their neighbours, more shop owners started laying out slabs with their own colour and style. So you’d have softly glowing pink, rammed up against the harsh, seizure-inducing flashing of a green and yellow strobe, leading into a red that turned purple when it was stepped on. As the district grew, so did the trend of the “doorstep”, until eventually the visual assault of the sidewalks themselves helped business to boom in every shop along the way.

Overstimulation aside, the place was quite pretty. The constant lighting meant business could run into the evening, servicing all sorts of clientele at all times. The quartz and the paved roads were well maintained and, despite the constant bustle of activity, the place was relatively clean compared to other areas of the Guild - probably because they’d pick up the trash to sell it back to you. The buildings actually seemed to have been planned out, and most appeared to have been constructed from fine hardwoods.

Although it took some getting used to, the illuminated road meant the area was extremely safe as all nooks and crannies were highly visible at all times. Don’t make eye contact with the street vendors though or they’ll stick like shit on your shoe and never let go.

My destination could be found between two towering storefronts. To the left was ‘Terry’s Tailor’, run by a fellow called Greg, where you could buy suits that your mother would be proud to see you in, and even suits that your ‘daddy’ would be proud to see you in. To the right was ‘Kil’n It’ that sold an assortment of fine china, pots, and other fancy stuff I don’t care about; I only really went there once because some of my associates said that they were great for laundering but they wouldn’t touch my clothes. Then, nestled between them like a pendant in a bosom, sat Rosie’s Tea House. The buildings either side were so immense that they permanently blotted out the sun, making the Tea House look like a child’s dollhouse. Rosie’s place was a quaint little inn that stood only two stories tall, made from hand-chopped oak and barely held together with painstaking repairs done with the mindset that “something is more beautiful when it’s been broken”. Every crack that appeared was carved out into a beautiful art piece and filled with this pretty golden resin to show it off. Any busted hinge was reinforced and placed back stronger than it was before. Rosie’s place knew exactly what it was.

Upon reaching the building I swung open the heavy door and glanced around the place. The lights were dim, the floor was a little dusty, but it was nice, homey, and otherwise immaculate. It was, however, practically deserted, with the exception of a gentleman, who can be best described as a drunken sailor, his faithful parrot, a single student diligently ignoring them to study, and a small hunched, robed figure in the corner booth. The sailor had commandeered the piano and was valiantly trying, and failing, to get past the first line of the children's classic ‘Twin Moons’, as the parrot on his shoulder squawked along, looping back to the beginning every time he made a mistake.

Behind the bar the sole barkeep was diligently cleaning an assortment of teacups. He was a man-mountain, the sort of guy who had to duck whenever he entered a room. He was sporting a neatly combed black ponytail, complemented by a massive beard plaited with a selection of wooden beads, a barely fitting uniform, and poking out ever so slightly was chest hair thick enough to weave like a wicker basket.

I headed towards the bar so I could begin organising things for Ra’s arrival, but then I heard a loud, conspicuous cough. It would appear the hunched creature in the corner was my partner, her personality disappointing me once more as I noted she was at least three minutes early. She wasn’t so much robed as she’d had a thick, knitted blanket draped over her numerous times. She was nuzzled into a fuzzy pair of earmuffs to block out her feathery serenade, and her eyes were relaxed and almost closed as she leaned back in her booth. As I approached I could see an empty teacup on the table while she awkwardly nursed a mug of Rosie’s soup of the day, AKA sandwich of yesterday, attempting to enjoy it but wincing with each sip. I walked toward her, grabbed a chair from an empty table, and spun it around beside her, looking into her eyes as I lounged over the chair’s backrest.

“Morning Ra,” I said with an accompanying squeak of my chair. “You’re quite early.”

“I’ve been here for over forty minutes,” she cooed, eyes open but heavily lidded. “Thankfully, contrary to all my expectations, you have actually chosen a lovely establishment for this...meeting. I’m astonished that you know of it.”

“Yeeeaaah, Rosie’s is great,” I stated whilst rifling through my pants as I searched for the instructions I’d left carefully crumpled in my pocket. “Anyway, you like Runestones, time for you to get some practice.” With the instructions in hand I splayed that sheet of paper across the table like I slipped it twenty gold.

With a cocked eyebrow she gingerly placed the soup bowl back on the table so that she could remove the earmuffs. Ra looked at me through the corner of her eye, “You have new Runes for me?”

“...Kinda.” I shoved the list toward her.

“I already know how to craft these Runestones. There is nothing new on here at all,” she stated after a glance, before frowning and pointing to the sheet. “These numbers beside the Rune names, what do they mean?”

“That’s how many you have to make.”

“Excuse me?”

“As payment for my services.”

“Services?”

She did not seem as smart as she claimed. “Yes. I give you the learnings, you make stone.” I had to speak her language.

Her lips pursed and she breathed out heavily through her nose. “Okay. So then where are ‘the learnings’? All I see are benefits for you on this page.”

“I’ve got them.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“You wound me. I am an upstanding citizen.”

“Then show me the new Rune designs, or whatever advanced knowledge you managed to obtain.”

“Sure. It’s upstairs. But first,” I reached out with one hand, grabbed the soup bowl resting on the table, and downed it in a single swig. Her look of disgust matched the taste of her former lunch. “Have you met Rosie?”

The look of irritation on her face quickly faded and what I assume was her equivalent of a smile appeared. “Oh yes, Rosie was delightful. I was personally welcomed in and attended to as soon as I entered. My comfort was ensured with this lovely warm blanket and the earmuffs helped me cope with the...ah...music.” She glared briefly at the pirate and his parrot, on their 157th rendition of Twin Moons since I entered. Then she perked up again, “We even started to talk about the flow of-”

“Fantastic,” I interrupted. I held the empty bowl in the air and slapped it with my spare hand a few times. “ROSIE!”

Her irritation had rapidly returned.

“You are being outrageously rude,” she seethed through gritted teeth, “to the angelic owner of this business.” She attempted to snatch the bowl, but was too weighed down by blanket to get enough height. Her struggle made me feel good inside. She settled for hissing, “Stop it!”

I ignored it.

The man-mountain behind the counter looked up, grabbed a teapot and teacup, and began to stomp toward our table. The weak timber floor audibly flexed under his steps and his frilly apron wafted with each stride.