The smell of ale never gets old. As I enter the tavern, I was greeted by the sight of drunken men singing together, dwarven travelers playing cards on the table, and an elven druid impressing the other tavern inhabitants with his magic. I scan the tavern hoping to see a person willing to help and to find the stranger that talked to me a while ago, I slowly walked up the bar to avoid looking crazy or suspicious, "What can I do for ye?" The bartender asked, "Anything that I can drink." I replied hastily, "All right lad." The bartender grabbed a wooden mug from one of the stand and began pouring Red Wine from the barrels laying on the bar table.
Once he finished pouring my drink, the bartender slid the mug to my hand and I caught it, "That'll be two gold pieces lad." I reach down my trousers to grab my gold pouch and proceeded to remove two pieces from it and I immediately gave it to the bartender, "Much obliged lad, anything else that I can do for ye?" I quickly remembered that I needed help and asked, "Well, are there any people here willing to help?" The bartender squinted his eyes, "Help? Help with what?" I hesitated for a bit, thinking that he might not believe me and send me off, but if I were to get help, I would need to tell the truth, "Hunting bandits, ransacked and burned my home." The bartender nodded his head, "Bandits are a common sight these days lad, anything unique about these bandits that differentiate them from the rest?" I try to remember what the figures looked like as they were leaving my burning home, "Nothing much, only they were all wearing black cloaks." The bartender held his hand to his mouth, "Did these bandits have any sigils on their cloaks?" I tried to remember the memory more clearly, "I didn't see any sigil on it." The bartender nodded his head, "Ah I see, well those bandits that you described, are most certainly the Black Cloaks of Tirth." I widened my eyes once I heard the name, but before I had the words to speak the bartender added, "But for them to be this close to Dun, is frankly bizarre, for them to be this far out, they must be finding something important." I widened my eyes yet again, I realized that the person that I stole the map from, is from the Black Cloaks. I felt the guilt over my family's death wash over me like a wave, but I had to hide them, for I still needed help.
"Yes, quite important..." I said with a sarcastic tone, trying not to sound guilty, "Well lad, if you needed help with this, 'fraid there's only one person qualified to help you" He points towards the traveler that spoke with me a while ago, "But be careful lad, that man right there, he's a dangerous fellow." The bartender spoke, as if he knew that I may die just from speaking to him, "How so?" I asked curiously, "Some that have crossed paths with that man, call him the Wandering Death, that wherever he goes there will always be death." I scoffed at the bartender, "That's bullshit." I said in a forward manner, "If his name is true, then why hasn't anybody here died yet?" The bartender let out a small snicker, "You never know lad, you never know..." I stood up from my seat and made my way towards the traveler that spoke to me.
As I got closer to the traveler, he looked at me briefly and drank his beer, "So the bartender said you can help me." The traveler put his mug down, "Yeah, that ol' cunt will say anything just to get you away from his table." I sat beside the traveler, "The hell are you doin'?" I tried to look seriously, "Listen, I really need your help." The traveler began to look annoyed with me, "Whatever help that you need, I'm not gonna help you." The traveler stood up and started walking for the door, "It's about the Black Cloaks of Tirth." The traveler stood dead in his tracks and immediately turned around, "What did you say?" The traveler looked at me dead in the eye, fear started to fill me, nut I mustered up the courage to continue, "The Black Cloaks of Tirth." I repeated but with more fear in my voice, the traveler signaled me to come closer and I stood up and followed him.
He led to one of the corner chairs in the tavern, "Okay speak, what about these Black Cloaked cunts, that has you sniffin' their asses." I started to explain to him what my situation was, "So this all started, when I stole a map from one the members of the Black Cloaks." The traveler raised his eyebrow, "If all this happened because of a map, then that map must be extremely important." The traveler leaned forward, "Would you let me look at this map?" I hesitated for a bit, thinking that he may take the map and return it to its rightful owners, but as I said, to get help I need to tell the truth. I grabbed the map from one of my pockets in my trousers and gave it to the traveler, "So this is it, a map to the mystical Gem of Power." He said with a humorous tone, "Yes that's it." I said, "Well 'fraid to tell you this boy, but this an incomplete map, this is just the end of it." I leaned back in surprised, if the Black Cloaks had the last part, then possibly they had the complete map set, which would explain why they wanted to kill the person that stole it, "Well, its not the map that I'm after, it's getting revenge." I coldly said, "Hm, good." I stand shocked at his answer, "So, you'll help me?", The traveler nodded his head, "But before we do this, tell me your name." "Zach." I immediately said, "Well Zach, I here by would like to welcome you to the company of Draniv the traveler." Draniv held out his hand, I grabbed his hand shook it.
As we were about to stand up, five men in black cloaks entered the tavern, four of them holding swords, while the last one had a staff, possibly magical, "Shit, it's them." Dravis muttered, "Let's try and go that way." Dravis stealthily pointed to the back exit, while the five men cloaked men started to search the whole tavern for me and the final part of the map. As we were about to get away, the man with the magical staff casted an incantation, and out the staff came out a purple light, the purple light then began to teleport to different people and scanned them in a blink of an eye, and when the purple light stopped on us, the purple light stayed there and changed color from purple to bright blood red, letting out a deafening screech as it kept changing, once the screeching stopped, the purple light kept on changing its colors, "There they are!" One of the black cloaks screamed, "Crap" I fearfully said, "Seems like we need to fight our way out of this." Dravis said, unsheathing his steel sword from his scabbard, "You got any weapons on you boy?" I quickly scanned my body for any sharp or blunt objects on me, "I got none." Dravis quickly grabbed a small dagger from his belt and gave it to me, "Stick em' with the pointy end, got it?" I readied myself for the coming battle, "Got it."
The whole bar stood quietly, everyone waiting for the person to make the first move, everyone looked at each other's eyes, trying to see if they were going to move, until one of cloaked men screamed at the top of his lung and lunged towards Dravis, and that's when chaos ensued, as the fight started, I saw Dravis already struggling against three cloaked men pitted against him, while the two other cloaked men were trying to escape. I chase the two of them inside the tavern, dodging and weaving the other tavern inhabitants that were also fighting, I grabbed a piece of wood that fell from the supports above and threw it at the cloaked wizard, the other cloaked man turned around, looked at me and unsheathed his sword, "Come here you little bastard!" He screamed while lunging towards me, I dodged the first one and nearly got hit by his sword swipe, I tried to lunge at him, but ultimately failed and fell on my stomach. The cloaked man went closer to me, hoping that he would stab me in the back to kill me, but as he drove the sword into the ground, I quickly rolled away and stabbed him in his gut, "Argh!" the cloaked man screamed in pain and dropped his sword, he forcefully slapped my face to get me away from him, "Shit..." I muttered in pain, holding my cheek, the man removed the dagger from his gut, and threw the dagger away. The man slowly walked toward me, holding his bloodied gut with his left hand, I tried to walk back, but I was already pressed up against the wall. The man grabbed my neck with right and began to choke me, I tried to fight back, but the man was far more superior than me. I started to lose my breath, my vision started darkening, "This is the end for me..." I said to myself as I my vision darkens faster.
But then, I muttered something "Aeeu Bwuv..." The man raised his eyebrow and started to strangle me harder, and then with my remaining energy, I screamed, "Aer Bruv!" And the man flew across the tavern, as if the air around my body forcefully blew the man away from me. As I slowly regained my composure, I grabbed the man's sword and proceeded to return to where Dravis was.
I went back and saw the corpse of one of the Cloaked Men, it was full of blood with a slash on his chest, as I looked for Dravis, I saw him struggling against two Cloaked Men, one of the Cloaked Men managed to grab hold of him in a choke hold, and the other grabbed his sword to put it in Dravis' stomach, I quickly ran to get close and stabbed the man with the sword in his back through the chest, "What..." the Cloaked man said as he fell to the floor dying, while the second cloaked man was distracted, Dravis headbutted him, turned him around, and pushed him towards the man with the sword through his chest. "Nice work kid." Dravis said panting heavily, "Yeah, no sweat..."
The tavern was completely ruined, what was once clean and neatly refurbished, became rooms full of broken tables, broken walls and full of blood, "There were five of them, I killed three of them, I assume that you got the other two?" Dravis asked me, "One, the other one got away." Dravis let out a sigh, "That's a problem, we have to get out of Dun before they burn this place to the ground." I nodded in agreement.
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