The town was further away than it looked from the hill that I used to climb. I had only ever been to town three times previously, all in the past year. I had travelled there with my mum to trade at the market a few times. We had always travelled on the cart with the horses. Travelling by foot took so much longer.

  I was lucky that my mum had made me pack a flask of water. I was also not used to the feeling of wind on my face. I had always worn my mask previously when anywhere outside of the house. This was the first time I had been anywhere in the cowl that I was gifted. The feeling of the breeze on my face was pleasant as it gently caressed my skin. Although, the novelty wore off when the wind got stronger. This was the middle of January after all… it was painfully cold.

  The adjustments that my mother had made to my armour had made it much more comfortable. I hadn’t even realised that I had grown at all over the past year. I’m only 4ft in total. Even my growth spurts were only a few centimetres, but when your armour is as fitted to you, as mine needs to be, then even an extra centimetre makes a big difference to how it feels. All in all, it took me about an hour and a half to hike to the town.

  I wasn’t looking forward to the hike home at the end of the day. I was hoping to get a big quest that would save me from that hike for a few days, but deep down I knew the chances of that were unlikely, I was an inexperienced 15yr old halfling after all. Well, at least that’s what the registration form would say. People were hardly going to be clambering for my services.

  During the walk there, I thought a lot about what my mother had said to me. She was a very practical and straight forward woman, but at times she did have a flare for the poetic. Describing me as a beautiful storm was generous to say the least. There was nothing beautiful about me back then. I’m a tiny hairless green creature with a long sharp nose, beady glowing yellow eyes, and my voice is painfully nasal. It took me years of practice to sound even vaguely normal.

  I am aware that she wasn’t talking about outer beauty with her statement, but internally I was in no way beautiful either. I was aggressive, antagonistic, and outright violent towards her. I wasn’t a storm… I was a fucking hurricane. The faith that woman puts in me and the love that she has shown me will never cease to confuse and baffle me.

  I finally arrived at the adventurers’ guild. The door was large and heavy… it almost felt like a test of strength just opening the thing. The town was 95% humans, so the guild was not made with people of my stature in mind. The reception desk was at least 1ft taller than I was. I had to move a chair over so that I could see over it.

  As soon as I poked my head over the desk I was greeted with a gruff raspy voice “wha d ya want?” I still find this woman terrifying. Her name is Vanessa. She is a large wrinkled creature who wears way too much eye shadow. She smells of lavender and cigars, which is an odd combination.

  Every single time I have ever seen that woman she has had a cigar in her mouth. Pretty sure she’s about 100 years old. I grant you, that doesn’t sound too terrifying. But seriously… that woman can stare right into your soul and she makes me feel even smaller than I already am.

  I struggled to speak… “Umm.” She fixed me with a piercing stare and said “Spit it out boy!” This was my big day; I wasn’t going to let nerves get the better of me now. “I would like to register as an adventurer.” She attempted to see my face by peering into my cowl. She couldn’t… thankfully.

  “How old are you… child?” she asked. “It is my 15th birthday today” I lied. She raised an eyebrow and said “Aren’t you a little short?” I love how even all those years ago my mother saw situations like this coming when she named me.

  “I am a halfling, miss. My name is Dwynfel Vesidia” I stated. “The boy from the farm” she said. Which caught me off guard, I couldn’t think what to say next so simply said “What?”

  She followed up by saying “I’ve bought from ya mother’s stall before. Carrots were a bit small this year. She said ya were an halfling… still weren’t expecting you to be quite so… small. Clearly her carrots are not the only thing of hers that lack size.”

  I laughed nervously and said “sorry that the carrots didn’t meet your expectations miss… but I assure you I am more than capable for my size.” She handed me a form “That’s yet to be seen. Ya mother informs me ya can read, so fill this in, hand it back to me, then ya registered.”

  I quickly filled in the form and handed it back to her. “That were quick. Don’t get many folks coming in ‘ere that can read… never mind write” she said. “My mother taught me well.” I said with pride.

  She gestured over to the quest board and told me “Go find a quest from’t board, when ya have one you can do, bring it o’er here so I know to stop other fuckers from takin’ it… and more importantly who to tell when ya mangled corpse gets found.” She laughed to herself as I nervously went to check the board.

  My first quests were not particularly interesting. I found a lost dog for an elderly woman. I collected some herbs from a nearby wood and some other innocuous stuff. Didn’t even need to use my bow. All of the interesting quests required a party that I was lacking. So, at the end of each day, I went home to my mother with the pathetic few coins that I had earned. Not enough to help her pay for the farm hand she had hired. Barely enough to pay for my food when I was in town. You’ve got to start somewhere, right.

  I carried on like this for an entire year. Eventually I asked my mother for advice and she suggested that I place a notice on the board asking if any parties would like an extra member, either that or go to the pub and try to make some friends there. I was not socially confident enough to attempt her pub suggestion, so I decided on the note. Which I did with great excitement.

  So, I placed my note on the board and continued to go about my inoffensive quests. Another few weeks went by and nobody had responded. I was starting to feel very low. Maybe this town really wasn’t the place for a halfling to seek work. I know many humans are not fans of other species. I was planning on removing my note, but when I returned to collect my reward for finding yet another lost dog, Vanessa shouted over, “Oi… short arse… these two want a word!” She gestured to two women sitting having a drink across the hall.

  The two women were drastically different to each other. The first was about 6ft and in big, heavy armour with red cloth accents. I could tell from her neck alone that she was muscular. She was a pale woman; she had short blonde bobbed hair and her eyes were blue. She had a short sword in a scabbard hanging from her hip. She also had a great sword on the floor by her feet. She had a musky smell to her that I have never quite been able to put my finger on.

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  The other was much slighter. A few inches shorter than the first. She was slender but her arms and legs looked strong. She had no weapons of which to speak of, although she had some interesting gauntlets on. She had the most beautiful face that I had ever seen. Her skin was a wonderfully olive shade and she smelt faintly of lemon. She had long black hair that she wore in cornrows and her eyes were emerald green. She wore leather armour with green accents that matched her eyes.

  I have always hated the colour green. I know, that sounds silly, my skin is green after all. But that colour always reminded me of what I truly am… where I came from. This woman’s emerald eyes were the first time I had seen green and not been instantly reminded of my past. I stood and stared at her eyes until eventually the tall one shouted over. “You coming or what?”

  I snapped out of my trance and moved over to their table. The large one gestured for me to have a seat. I was even more nervous than when I had first registered with Vanessa. The large one just looked at me… then at my bow… then back at the shadow where my face should have been.

  “We need somebody who can fight from range. You in?” The other one jumped in “Hi… sorry about her… she can be a tad direct. I’m Tilda Swan and this is Chloe Cleeves. We’ve just started adventuring but it’s just the two of us so far. I’m a monk and she’s a warrior, so neither of us are any use from range.”

  I had never come across somebody of the monk class before. They are often favoured by people from poor communities as their fighting style requires no weapons. So, it was odd that she was so well spoken. They rely on their fists and feet to deal damage. Which explained her improvised gauntlets. If your main method of damage dealing is your fists then you are going to need to protect them.

  She continued “We saw your note on the board… how long have you been adventuring?” Her voice was soft and sweet. She sounded like such a delicate creature. I found it hard to imagine somebody with that voice being involved in any kind of conflict. But judging by her arms and legs she looked more than capable.

  “Umm… I’ve been doing this for a bit over a year. Although I’ve never been in a party, so my quests have all been very low level. I can barely afford my food in town from what I earn, to be honest.” The tall one laughed and said “Well that’ll change now… between the three of us, we can take on some serious shit!” She continued laughing as she took a drink.

  Tilda looked at Chloe with a look of indignance, then back at me before saying “We’ll save the serious shit until after we’ve done some more simple things. We don’t want to get too overwhelmed. There’s been some issues with giant rats down in the east district that we thought we’d try first. Would that be of interest to you?”

  I was bursting with excitement inside, but I didn’t want to let that show as I responded “That sounds like an ideal place to start.” Chloe stood, picked her great sword up off the floor and said “Let’s go murder some rats then.” She proceeded to walk towards the door. Tilda touched my arm with her hand and said “You get used to her.”

  As we walked to the eastern district, the buildings got much more condensed. I was unfamiliar with the layout of the town, so was relying on the others to get us to the right place.

  I was still captivated by the town. The buildings were so tall… there were so many of them… and there were so many people. My house didn’t have any stairs in it, buildings this tall were beyond foreign to me. My home was a little farm house far away from anybody else. At best we would see somebody pass by on the road maybe once every few days. Here some streets were so full of people that you had to squeeze your way through.

  Most of the journey was spent with Chloe asking tactless questions and Tilda trying to politely rephrase them. Which was kind of endearing. I could tell that they had been friends for a while from their dynamic. Fortunately, Chloe believed my contagious skin condition excuse when she asked about my cowl and armour. She did have difficulty believing that I was 16 as they were both only 15. I mean, obviously I wasn’t 16, I wasn’t even 15. But they knew that I had been registered for a year so I had to keep the lie going.

  She said “You can’t be 16… you don’t even come up to my chest! We won’t tell if you lied about your age, you can tell us!” As much as I would love to be honest there was no way I was taking the risk, so I simply said “When we are finished with the rats you are welcome to come home and check with my mum.”

  Tilda jumped in, as she always does, saying “She doesn’t mean to offend you. She just isn’t used to halflings. In fact, you are the first non-human that we have actually spoken to. You will have to tell us all about your culture.”

  Tilda is such a sweet and friendly person. I know she was covering for her friend, but I could tell from her voice that she did genuinely want to know about my halfling ways. She seemed disappointed when I said I didn’t know anything about halfling culture due to being raised by two humans on a farm.

  She started crying and hugged me when I told her the story that my mother and I had rehearsed many times as I grew up. The story being that my father found me naked, beaten and starving at the side of the road on his way back home from a quest when I was seven. I mentioned how he had placed me in his backpack and carried me home. I was also very clear that I could remember nothing before that day.

  We chose seven so that the timing would line up with when my father took some time out of adventuring in case anybody looked into it.

  My mother told me that lying is wrong most of the time, but there will always be exceptions and unfortunately my life was one of those exceptions. She also said that the best lies have an element of truth. They need to be vague enough for you to skirt around later but also contain small details. People always believe the oddly small details. This story was perfect by those guidelines. The small detail of the back pack which also served as being an element of truth and not remembering anything before that kept it vague.

  The scheme that my mother had devised had worked. These two women, who would have happily killed me if they knew what I truly was, were perfectly happy to stand side by side with me as we partied together. I was finally on my way to becoming an adventurer.

  The rats in the east district were emerging from the sewers and causing havoc in the marketplace. When we got there, there were two of them attacking a butcher’s stall and three others sniffing at the rubbish pile in the corner of the market. They were big, about my height, which was unnerving.

  Chloe drew her great sword and the two girls rushed in. They went to protect the butcher first. Chloe sliced the first one in half in an instant.

  I have never seen anybody that strong before. My father was skilled with a sword but I never actually witnessed him fighting. Chloe sliced that rat as if it was nothing. Tilda on the other hand, moved so swiftly and with such grace. Her limbs seemed to glide through the air with each blow that she landed. It took her a while to beat the rat down but she was able to do it easily and in such an elegant way that I was captivated.

  I couldn’t be captivated for long though. I needed to make myself useful. The other rats had noticed what was going on and all three were heading for Chloe as Tilda was finishing the other rat off. Chloe was strong but not particularly fast so would definitely struggle with multiple smaller enemies.

  That’s where I come in. I finally got a chance to use my bow. I was more excited about that than I really should have been. I shot one rat in the leg to slow it down and I shot another in the eye. Which, in all honesty, was pure luck as I was aiming for its leg. I figured that staggering them getting to Chloe would be the easiest thing to do and she could just slice them in twain as they got to her.

  My plan worked, in that the first one was sliced in two. However, the injured rats attempted to run back to the sewers rather than continue their attack. I managed to shoot the limping rat again, killing it, but the other one was fast.

  Tilda managed to catch up to it by the entrance to the sewer and she forced the arrow further into its head, killing it. Chloe proceeded to cut off each of their heads. We got 1 silver piece for each rat we killed, so we needed to produce proof for each kill. Heads are the easiest way to do that. Chloe passed me one of the heads to carry. I found it difficult to grip, it was heavy and all the blood made it slippery. She laughed and said with a maniacal grin on her face “Glad you can shoot, Shorty… now let’s get our money!”