"What are you, some kind of ranger?" Mialee asked.
"No, just a wandering bard with a half-empty ale glass, I'm afraid." He signaled Gurgitt for another round. Mialee refused more of the tea.
"So, tell me about this ruin."
Devis slapped a coin on the table and took a swallow from his refilled glass. "It's a ruin, but it's not uninhabited. Morkeryth spooks most people here in Dogmar, but that makes it a good place for people to-well, hide."
"What kind of people?" Mialee asked.
"People who don't want to be found," the bard explained unhelpfully.
The elf woman opened her mouth to ask another question as the wooden door slammed inward with a loud crack.
A skeletal, purplish-gray, humanoid shape hunched in the low entryway to the Silver Goblet. Its leathery, gray skin was covered in the remnants of tattered traveling clothes so colorful they would not have looked out of place on a court jester had they not been caked with gore and mud. In one gnarled fist it clutched what looked like a small, hairy foot. Blood ran down onto its bare chest from its open, toothy mouth. The thing's empty eye sockets flickered red as it flung its jaws wide and screeched. Lightning flashed, casting the skeletal figure in silhouette.
"And those kind, I'm afraid," Devis said softly over Mialee's shoulder.
2
A cacophony erupted from every corner of the tavern. Mialee had to grip the bar to keep her balance as the current of sweaty, bellowing bodies trampled toward the back of the room, apparently hoping to escape through the kitchen whether Mrs. Gurgitt liked it or not. Heavy thumps told her Gurgitt was lumbering kitchen-ward at top speed to explain the situation to his wife personally.
The fingers of Mialee's right hand twirled in a short, complicated gesture, and she whispered a few words in Elvish. She raised her glowing fingertips to blast the monster with golden energy. At last, something interesting was happening.
Unaware or uncaring of what Mialee was doing, Devis drew a long sword and leaped between her and the skeletal thing in the door. In passing, the bard knocked her hand aside. The golden fire sputtered and died on her fingers.
Angrily she shouted at her would-be savior. Devis foolishly risked a glance back at the wizard.
The screeching thing's eyes flashed as it saw the opening. It leaped into the now-deserted tavern with animal speed and caught the bard across the jaw with one bone-knuckled fist. Devis flew backward and flopped onto the bar amid the clutter of glasses, cups, and half-eaten dinners littering the countertop.
"Idiot," Mialee repeated, but hoped the bard was all right. She concentrated on retrieving her aborted spell. Her fingers brushed a tiny pearl in one pocket of her robe and she felt the power surge anew.
The gray creature swiveled its wire-haired skull on a ropy neck. It hissed in wordless challenge.
Mialee's hand finished shaping the spell, and she chopped the air in front of her face. A ball of golden fire erupted from her splayed digits and drove at the speed of magic into the thing's torso.
The monster staggered back, smoke curling up from its charred clothing and blackened skin. The back of its skull struck the low archway and it stopped with a snarl.
Mialee heard the clink of glasses and saw Devis roll off of the bar and land next to her in a crouch. He fumbled on the floor and retrieved his sword. Mialee searched her mind for another useful spell. She hadn't expected to go into combat today, so most of the spells she'd memorized were aids to her studies-detection spells, light spells, and divinations. Was there nothing else?
Well, she always had her wand of missiles. Failing that, a rapier hung from her waist, smacking against her leg. But first she slipped the polished wooden wand into her hand and prepared to meet the creature's attack.
The assault came, but not from the skeletal shape smoldering in the doorway. A ball of brown and white fur slammed into the intruder from behind, knocking the blood-caked thing face-first to the floor. Hound-Eye straddled the lanky monster and raised a heavy mining pick over his head. With a high-pitched yell of anguish and fury, the halfling plunged the pick into the back of the creature's skull. Twice. Three times. Black gore, bits of yellowed bone sprouting wiry hair, and leathery chunks of flesh spattered into the air.
After a half-minute, the creature finally stopped squirming around the pick that staked its head to the floor. Its skull was a ruin, its neck torn and broken. A viscous puddle bloomed around the whole affair and spread over the floorboards.
Hound-Eye rolled off the creature and moaned at the ceiling. He clutched gingerly at a makeshift, sodden, red bandage covering the stump of his left ankle. Mialee looked at the dead thing's knotted fist, still clutching the hairy little foot, and realized with sickening certainty where the creature had found its lucky charm.
"Hound-Eye!" Devis shouted. He dropped his sword and ran to the agonized halfling. "Mialee, Gurgitt always keeps a stock of potions behind the bar," he called over his shoulder.
Mialee blinked and hesitated, then swept glasses from the countertop and clambered over to the bar. Her sharp eyes scanned the open shelves, looking for vials of healing magic. She saw several unlabeled wooden boxes that could have held anything from blasting powder to gnomish beer, for all she could tell.
Hound-Eye screamed pitiably. Devis shouted, "Hurry, Mialee, he's going into shock!"
"Where are they?" said Mialee.
"I don't know, behind the bar!" Devis yelled, panic creeping into his voice. "In a wooden box, I think." More quietly, the bard said, "Look at me, Hound-Eye. Focus on my eyes, little guy. Come on. How many fingers am I holding up?"
"Blue," mumbled the halfling.
Mialee flung several unlabeled crates from the shelves, shattering bottles of liquor and clay pots full of dried meat onto the floor with no sign of any medicine. Then her eyes fell on a stack of laundered towels. They would have to do. She grabbed the top few and an unbroken bottle of dark green liquid with Orcish script on the label. That had to be potent, she guessed.
Magic, Mialee had found in her studies, was sometimes not the only solution to a problem. The wizard often traveled alone in dangerous country, and had gotten used to rationing any healing magic tightly and to treat minor injuries with non-magical methods whenever she could. Favrid had drummed the practice into her during their travels, and she'd never lost the basic skills.
The elf woman sprang to the bartop and rolled over it sideways, bounced onto her booted feet, and stepped into the goo surrounding the remains of the gray monster's head. Her feet flew forward beneath her and she slammed backward into the bar, then the floor. She stared up at the tobacco-stained ceiling of the Silver Goblet tavern through a red wash of pain. The orc liquor bottle seemed suspended in midair, slowly tumbling end over end above her. Bar towels fluttered down like wet leaves.
A fingerless glove flashed into her vision and deftly clasped the neck of the spinning bottle inches above her temple.
"Thanks," Devis said.
Mialee winced. "Don't-ow-mention it. Couldn't find the potions."
"Yeah, I guessed. This works for now," Devis said, examining the Orcish label. "Drek grog. Good year." The bard twisted the cork into his fingers and took a long draw from the bottle. He grimaced and gasped, eyes bulging. "Smooth," he croaked.
Mialee crawled on all floors and collected the bar towels, leaving those that had landed in monster-gore. She handed them to Devis, who upended the bottle of clear liquor and emptied half of the contents onto the handful of rags.
"Hound-Eye, I've got to clean this, or you're going to die," Devis said loudly into the moaning halfling's one-eyed face.