“Are we there yet?” I grumbled, shifting the weight of the sword to my other shoulder.
“An infantile query,” Bartholomew sighed from a few paces ahead, his fluffy tail a gray banner of disapproval. “Cease your caterwauling. We shall arrive when we arrive.”
“You’re not the one hauling this tetanus-trap,” I shot back. “You weigh less than a bag of groceries.”
“And yet, I possess infinitely more dignity.”
We lapsed into a tired silence, the only sounds being the crunch of my boots on the gravel and the whisper of the wind through the trees. After what felt like an eternity, the forest began to thin. The oppressive canopy gave way to open sky tinged orange by the last fading light, and the road widened. We rounded a final bend, and the ground fell away into a wide, green valley.
And there it was. Oakhaven.
It was exactly what you’d picture if you Googled ‘generic fantasy village.’ A sturdy-looking stone wall, maybe fifteen feet high, encircled a cozy collection of timber-framed buildings with steep, thatched roofs. A river, shimmering like a silver serpent in the last rays of the sun, flowed alongside the western wall, spanned by a single arched stone bridge. Smoke curled from a dozen chimneys, promising warmth and cooked food. Outside the walls, a patchwork of fields, some fallow and brown, others still stubbornly green, spread out like a comfortable quilt. It was the most beautiful, most promising sight I had ever seen. It screamed ‘hot meal’ and ‘bed that is not a pile of rocks.’
“Okay, fluff-ball,” I said, a surge of fresh energy coursing through me. “There’s our next stop. Let’s go find the best five-star Yelp review, get a room, and I can finally take a shower that doesn’t involve licking myself clean.”Bartholomew shuddered.
“Must you be so relentlessly vulgar? And for your information, that is Oakhaven. A modest but respectable trading post. Let us hope their standards have not slipped to the point where they might accommodate…“ He looked me up and down, “You.”
The walk down into the valley was easier. Hope is a powerful motivator. As we drew closer, the idyllic picture began to fill with noise and detail—the lowing of cattle, the distant clang of a blacksmith’s hammer, the shouts of children. We crossed the stone bridge and approached the town gate, a heavy wooden portcullis that was thankfully raised. Two guards stood on either side, leaning on their spears with an air of profound boredom. They wore simple leather armor and steel caps, and their eyes widened slightly as I approached.
I could only imagine what they saw: a woman in filth-encrusted, tattered bug-splattered trousers, and a torn tunic, her hair a bird’s nest of twigs and dirt, with a brutish, rust-pocked sword slung over her shoulder. Oh, and a very fluffy—and somehow very clean—cat.
“State your business,” the guard on the left said, straightening up. His voice was flat, devoid of energy.
“Business?” I blinked. “Uh, tourist? Looking for lodging. And a bath. Seriously, a bath. Top of the list.”
He and his partner exchanged a look.
“No trouble, then?” the second one asked, eyeing my sword.
“Only for whatever monster is hoarding all the hot water in this town,” I said with a weary smile. “This thing,” I patted Rusty’s pommel, “is purely for decorative purposes. And fending off… large, aggressive insects.”
“And the occasional arachnid,” Bart added.
“That too.” I offered my best smile to the guards.The first guard grunted. It might have been a laugh.
“Insects, eh? Big ones in the mountains. Alright, in you go. The Gilded Mug is the only inn. Straight down the main way, can’t miss it. Just… try not to bleed on anything.”
“No promises,” I muttered as we passed them.
The moment we stepped inside the walls, the relative peace of the countryside vanished. The main street was a chaotic river of humanity. Cobblestones were slick with mud and things I didn’t want to identify. People bustled everywhere as they prepared for the oncoming night—merchants packed their wares, farmers lead weary-looking oxen, children were herded indoors. The air was thick with the smells of woodsmoke, roasting meat, manure, and unwashed bodies. It was overwhelming, but it was alive.
We found The Gilded Mug easily enough. It was the largest building on the street, two stories of dark wood and cheery, yellow light spilling from its windows. The sound of a badly played lute and raucous laughter spilled out every time the door opened. It looked perfect.
The inside was even more crowded. The place was packed shoulder-to-shoulder with a rough-looking assortment of travelers, farmers, and townspeople, all yelling to be heard over the music. A harried-looking man with a magnificent beer belly and a sweaty brow was trying to pull three mugs of ale at once behind the bar. I squeezed my way through the press of bodies, Bartholomew trailing at my heels like a gray shadow.
“Excuse me! Hi! Hello!” I finally yelled, catching the barkeep’s eye.
“What’ll it be?” he shouted back, wiping the counter with a rag that had seen better centuries.
“A room for the night! And a hot meal. And a bath. Did I mention the bath?”
He stopped what he was doing and gave me a pitying look.
“A room? Lass, you’d have better luck finding a unicorn nesting in the bell tower. We’ve been full since midday. Every inn for fifty miles is probably the same. Folks is fleeing south from the borderlands. Shadows stirring, they say.” He gestured vaguely to the grim-faced men and women scattered around the common room, their gear piled at their feet. Refugees. So much for a quiet little town.
My heart sank. “Seriously? Nothing? A closet? A particularly large crate?”
“Nothing,” he said, his tone final. He was about to turn away when his eyes fell on Bartholomew, who was now sitting primly on the floor, observing the scene with aristocratic disdain. “That your cat?”
“He’s… my associate,” I said.The barkeep grunted. He seemed to be thinking.
“Look,” he said, lowering his voice. “I’ve got no rooms. But the stables out back are warm and the hay is clean. Drier than sleeping in an alley. Cost you two coppers. Take it or leave it.”
My shoulders slumped. A stable. It wasn’t a bed, but it was a roof.
“Deal,” I said, then remembered a crucial detail. “So, about those coppers…” I began, preparing to offer my services as a world-class dishwasher or sarcastic commentator.
Before I could, Bartholomew padded forward. “A moment, if you please,” he said, his voice quiet but carrying with an unnatural clarity that made the barkeep lean down. Bartholomew coughed delicately, then nudged a small, dark object forward with his nose from… somewhere. I hadn’t even seen him carrying it.
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It was a coin. Not copper, but a dull, silvery metal, stamped with the image of a tree I didn’t recognize. It looked ancient.
The barkeep’s eyes widened. He snatched it up, bit it, and stared at Bartholomew, then at me, with a newfound respect.
“Right,” he said, his voice suddenly much friendlier. “The stable it is. Best spot, back left corner. I’ll have a girl bring you out a bucket of hot water and a loaf of bread. On the house.”
He pocketed the coin and bustled away before I could ask any questions.
“Where in the hell did you get that?” I whispered down to Bartholomew as we headed for the back door.
He flicked an ear. “One must always be prepared for transactions with the lower classes. Let us just say it is a relic of a more civilized age, when one’s currency was not predicated on its metallic sheen alone.”
We pushed open the heavy back door and stepped into the cool night air. The stable was just as the innkeeper had described. It was large and smelled sweetly of hay and warmly of horse. Animals shuffled and snorted in their stalls. In the back-left corner, a ladder led up to a spacious hayloft. It was quiet, peaceful, and blessedly empty.
I leaned Rusty against a support beam and collapsed into a pile of loose hay, the dust motes dancing in the single beam of moonlight lancing through a crack in the roof. A girl came in a few minutes later with a steaming bucket, a rough-spun towel, and a small, dense loaf of dark bread, leaving them at the bottom of the ladder with a shy nod before scurrying away.
It wasn’t the Gilded Mug. It wasn’t a proper bed or a hot bath, but as I looked around the quiet, safe dark of the stable, with my cat-warden grooming himself nearby and my terrible sword standing sentinel, I knew it was more than enough. It was sanctuary.
I woke to the insistent prodding of a paw against my cheek. Not a gentle, fluffy paw, but a deliberate, needle-pricked poke that meant business.
“Ugh, five more minutes, mom,” I mumbled, trying to swat it away and burrow deeper into the hay—the hay, which was decidedly not my memory foam mattress and down duvet.
My eyes snapped open. The single beam of moonlight was gone, replaced by thin, gray fingers of dawn creeping through the cracks in the stable walls. A large brown horse was staring at me from its stall with an expression of profound equine judgment. My spine had the structural integrity of a wet noodle, and I smelled like a petting zoo. Right. Eldoria. Not a nightmare.
“Rise and shine is a vulgar pleasantry I shall not deign to utter,” a prim voice stated from my solar plexus, where Bartholomew was now perched, grooming a stray whisker with intense focus. “However, the sun has commenced its tedious daily ascent, and we have an errand to perform. Unless you wish to make a permanent career of sleeping in animal refuse.”
“Don’t knock it ‘til you try it,” I groaned, sitting up and sending a cascade of hay down my tunic. My whole body ached in ways I didn’t know it could. I felt like I’d been in a mosh pit with a herd of rhinos. I grabbed the remains of last night’s loaf of bread, which was as dense as a brick but smelled surprisingly good, and tore off a chunk. It was hearty, studded with nuts and seeds, and was the best thing I’d tasted in days.
“A modicum of decorum, Paige, if you please. You are devouring that loaf like a starving guttersnipe.”
“I am a starving guttersnipe,” I said around a mouthful of bread. “Just one with a fancy, talking cat and a sword that looks like it lost a fight with a lawnmower.”
Rusty was still leaning where I’d left him, looking just as pathetic in the morning light. I half expected it to have wilted overnight. I used the cool water in the bucket and the rough towel to wash my face and hands, which felt like the height of luxury. The simple act made me feel fractionally more human.
We made our way out of the stable and into the inn’s common room. The morning crowd was sparse—a few farmers nursing mugs of what I hoped was ale and not something stronger at this hour. The innkeeper, a stout man with a magnificent mustache, spotted us from behind the bar.
“Ah, the travelers!” he boomed, his voice warm. “Slept well, I trust? The hay is fresh.”
“Five stars, would recommend,” I said, my sarcasm entirely lost on him. He just beamed.
“Come, come, before you set out. A bite to eat. On the house.” He gestured to a small, empty table.I eyed him suspiciously. My twenty-first-century brain, trained by hidden fees and clickbait articles, screamed ‘scam!’.
“What’s the catch?”
He looked genuinely puzzled.
“Catch? What is ‘catch’? A full belly makes for a safe road. And anyone brave enough—or foolish enough—to travel with a Warden of the Veil deserves a hot meal.” He gave Bartholomew a respectful nod, which the cat accepted with the regal solemnity of a king acknowledging a court jester.
I may not have been raised well by Bart’s standards, but I wasn’t about to argue with free food. We sat, and soon the table was graced with porridge thick with cream and honey, a plate of sizzling sausages, and two hard-boiled eggs. It was a feast. I ate until I felt vaguely ill, while Bartholomew delicately lapped at a small bowl of cream the innkeeper provided.
“We’re looking for an herbalist,” I said, wiping my mouth on my sleeve. The innkeeper’s smile tightened just a fraction.
“Aye, Krista. She keeps to herself. Her shop is on the edge of town, past the tanneries. You can’t miss it—it’s the one that looks like it’s being eaten by its own garden. Just… mind your tongue around her. She’s not one for pleasantries.”
“My specialty,” I muttered.
With another round of thanks, we left the warmth of the inn. The town was coming alive. The air smelled of woodsmoke, wet earth, and something deeply unpleasant that I assumed was the tannery. People in simple, earth-toned clothes moved with purpose, their faces etched with the kind of weary resilience I was starting to understand. It was all so real, so tangible.
I checked my satchel. Miraculously, the bundles of herbs were still intact, wrapped in their oilcloth and smelling faintly of mint and something sharp and bitter. Another successful quest objective. Go me.
Krista’s shop was exactly as described. It was a small, lopsided cottage almost completely consumed by climbing vines, with a thatched roof that had sprouted a whole ecosystem of mosses and wildflowers. Planter boxes overflowed with plants I didn’t recognize, some of which seemed to gently pulse with a faint light. The air here was thick with a thousand competing floral and earthy scents, a welcome relief from the acidic sourness of the tannery. A small, hand-carved sign on the gate read simply: “KRISTA. ENTER IF YOU MUST.”
“Charming,” Bartholomew sniffed from my shoulder, where he’d taken to riding.
I pushed open the heavy wooden door, which chimed with a collection of hanging bones and crystals. The inside was even more chaotic than the outside. Bunches of dried herbs hung from every rafter, casting long, spidery shadows. Shelves overflowed with clay pots, glass vials filled with shimmering liquids, and books bound in cracked leather. The air was dry and aromatic, and a woman with wild, firey hair stood with her back to me, grinding something in a large stone mortar.
“Don’t just stand there gaping,” she said, without turning around. Her voice was like gravel rolling downhill. “You’re letting the damp in. State your business or get out.”
So much for a warm welcome.
“Uh, hi. I’m Paige. I have a delivery for you. From…Maura?.
She finally turned. She was older, her face a roadmap of deep lines, but her eyes were the color of new spring leaves—sharp, intelligent, and missing nothing. She looked me up and down, her gaze lingering on Rusty’s hilt peeking from my belt, then flicking to Bartholomew. Her expression didn’t change.
“The parcels,” she said, her voice flat.
I carefully pulled the bundles of herbs from my satchel and placed them on the cluttered countertop. She unwrapped the first one, bringing it close to her face and inhaling deeply. She crumbled a leaf between her gnarled fingers, her eyes closed.
“Whisperbloom,” she murmured. “Still fresh. Impressive. The Whisperwood is not kind to travelers these days.” She inspected the other parcel—the sealed pot of Sun-shy moss—with the same intense scrutiny. Finally, she gave a curt nod. “The fool actually got them. It’s all here.”
She reached under the counter and pulled out a small, heavy leather pouch, tossing it to me. I fumbled it, the weight surprising. The clink of coins was unmistakable. Actual money.
“Your payment,” she said, already turning back to her mortar. “Now, get out. You smell of the road.”
“Right. Well, thanks for the… business.” I started to back away, mission accomplished. But as my fingers closed around the pouch, a strange sensation washed over me. It started as a faint, clear chime that seemed to ring inside my skull rather than in the room. It was followed by a wave of warmth that spread from my chest outwards, a pleasant, invigorating hum that settled deep in my bones. The aches from my night in the stable seemed to fade, and my mind felt sharper, clearer.
I must have looked as bewildered as I felt, because Krista glanced over her shoulder at me, a flicker of something—interest? annoyance?—in her green eyes.
“First time?” she asked dryly.
“First time what? Hearing phantom bells and feeling like I just drank a magical Red Bull?”
“The resonance,” she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Fulfilling a charge, completing a task bound by intent… it settles the world’s balance in your favor. Strengthens your core. Most stumble through their lives never feeling it. You, girl, are loud.”
I stared at her, then at the pouch of coins, then at Bartholomew, who was watching Krista with an unreadable feline expression. Somehow she knew that I wasn’t just a delivery girl, that I was part of… a system. A system with XP and level-ups.
“A pleasure doing business with you,” Bartholomew said smoothly, dipping his head toward the herbalist. “We shall now take our leave of your… rustic establishment.”
I followed him out, my mind reeling. Once the door closed behind us, cutting off the overwhelming scent of herbs, I leaned against the vine-covered wall, the pouch of coins heavy in my hand.
“Okay,” I said, my voice a little shaky. “Did that—did you—what the hell was that?”
“That, my dear Paige,” Bartholomew said, leaping gracefully from my shoulder to the ground, “was progress. A small step, to be sure, but a step nonetheless on the arduous path you now tread.”I opened the notification that was blinking on the edge of my awareness:
[Quest Complete!][In the Dark and Quiet][Reward: 50 Silver coins] [90XP]
I opened the pouch. Inside were exactly fifty silver coins, solid and real. It wasn’t a fortune, but it was more than I’d had five minutes ago, not counting the fey gold that I was reluctant to spend. We had money. We had a completed quest. And apparently, I had a ‘loud core’. Whatever the hell that meant.
“So what now?” I asked, looking at the cat who was now my only link to sanity. “Find another perfectly capable adult and do their grocery shopping?”
Bartholomew flicked his tail. “Now,” he said, his yellow eyes glinting with a purpose I hadn’t seen before. “I would suggest seeing about some armor, then finding your lost knight.”
“Yeah, after yesterday, armor sounds good.”