Sun 26 Jul, 2009
Grabbing my cup from the table next to my stool, I took a large gulp from it. It was ale, I think. Not the best, but it worked all the same (I have never really been one to drink it for the taste, anyway). Feeling a bit more limber and lively (that stuff hits me fast), I looked out at the faces in the room. Some were peering intently into the bottom of their ale mugs, while others were in lively chatter with whoever happened to be sitting at the bar next to them. A few were looking in my direction, watching, waiting expectantly for me to begin my story.
I could smell and feel the tension rising in the air. A smile wormed it’s way across my face. I let it. The story they waited for I have told again and again at many inns, and it was not the first for this place. Yet they were expectant, and for a little while, they forgot that they had worked hard all the day, let it slip their minds the grudge they have against their neighbor (who was also waiting for the story, I would muse).
I measured the ale I had left – half a pint, maybe a smidge less, then put the mug down where it had come from. Inhale, then exhale. The tension was just right, so I started the story the way I had countless other times in just as many places.
“Adventure takes the heart of many. Young, old, Human, Elf, what have you. This is a story of an unlikely four caught in unlucky circumstances. These four were united in a common goal; to seek out the grand wizards who live in the Wizard Spire.”
I paused, letting it sink into even the most drunk of men. More were watching now that I had spoken, and the buzz of talk seemed to be dying like the winds at the end of a sandstorm. With another sweeping look over the room, I continued.
“I wonder to this day if this Sorcerer Gwyn would choose differently, given the choice. It really doesn’t matter why a sorcerer would have the companions he did, as a sorcerer chooses his fellowship wisely. Peram, a Halfling with rather sticky fingers and a charming smile was his first companion. The second was a skilled Ranger who many called Talon. The oddest one in the group was Silk, a Brownie far away from his hillside village. They all met one day in a room that could very well have been this one and from there headed into the vastly dangerous sands of the Wastelands…”
