There is No Epic Loot Here, Only Puns

39: Lost in Translation

"I am here, to this goat fence. I taste for Quest!" the man informed the curious passer by. The young woman pursed her lips.

"Well, we don't take kindly to that word here," the young waitress informed him, her prim uniform of slacks and blouse made her face look more mature than it was.

Sethamus, Seth to his mother, blinked and ran the woman's words through his head. The man's grasp on the kingdom's language was... very basic and the grammar was very foreign to him. No one had told Seth that his Velurian was anything less than good. No one really had the heart to tell the man that as he belted out poems designed for the native language it transformed a once simple and elegant poem of two lovers into a war between three donkeys.

So, Seth had finally reached the little town of Durence, his intentions clear and his language foggy. He smiled and tried again, his purpose for coming to this town was to speak to an old friend.

"I seek Quest! I seek hot masculine lizard!" he tried and the waitress raised both eyebrows. Seth waited to see what she would do as her lips curved up into a slow smile.

"Where are you from?" she asked and Seth perked up at the simple question.

"I was... bred in Julipyso, very very away from here," Seth informed the woman proudly. He looked around at the quaint buildings, eyed the people walking around in the light of day, noticed the way some carried themselves.

Yes, this would be a place Quiss would end up tangled with. His speaking companion took a long look at his travelling boots, their battle-scarred leather, and at his weatherbeaten clothes.

"Listen, you want some... hot lizards, we got some nice stew in the pub but other than... well, you never know, Durence has pulled weirder things out its skirt. I am Nina," the woman offered Seth a hand.

Seth took the hand without blinking. This was good, the woman knew about the fire mages in town. He tasted the other word slowly. Stew...

His Velurian came up empty so he merely nodded. A pub would be some mage gathering tower or arcane spot. This woman must be an involved or perhaps a mage herself if she was offering to lead him there.

"I doubtedly accept!" Seth beamed and Nina paused then that small smile reappeared. Seth took that as a sign and followed the powerful mage before him. Nina, her simple but pretty appearance made this town seem even odder.

Quiss' letters, translated just as badly into his language as Seth spoke Quiss' tongue, spoke of a town that was either filled with raging rabbit demon bats or crazy old people. Seth wasn't sure if he felt happy or let down at the reveal of the answer.

When Quiss' letters stopped reaching him, he had decided to take a little journey to expand his mind. Being a mage himself, he was excited to see what the world offered him.

He had met Quiss in the very mage school that he had grown up in. Seth walked quietly behind Nina as he watched her point things out. Words zoomed past and he could only grasp some in a fumble, trying to match them to faces or buildings.

A mage school was not so common that every land or kingdom had one. In fact, it would be more correct of Seth to say that Mage schools popped up at a set distance from each other. Like animals declaring a territory as their own.

Since the schools could be so... sporadic, they often took in many students from many different cultures and lands. It led to many young children, teens, and even old people, being seated next to someone who didn't speak a lick of the same language.

It was chaos and yet, it worked. They had all come to study one language after all: Magic.

"-she is a druid, you know what a druid is?" Nina asked and Seth nodded, pleased to know words as she listed it. Nina stopped outside a rather plain looking building. She offered to let Seth go first and when he entered, the smell of alcohol, loud noises and body heat assaulted his senses.

It was the perfect place to find a fire mage. Seth looked around but didn't see anyone on fire or trying to strangle someone so he assumed Quiss wasn't here yet. This den of fire mages, there sure were plenty, all eyed him as he entered.

He sat, softly, down on an empty bar stool. He watched with some surprise as Nina split into three versions of herself to collect a rather large amount of glasses at once before she snapped back together and carried the load to the large sink in the back room.

"What? Never seen a splitter?" Nina teased and Seth shook his head.

"You became tree!" he said with interest and Nina looked like she had just heard something very amusing.

"That would be the druid's tricks... three, three. I split, I don't bark," she nudged him as she poured him some odd looking soup. An old man that looked like he had lost a fight with a rather upset axe, nodded at her.

"Boss, put it on my tab. Newcomer gets a good welcome to Durence," she said as she poured a jug of water into a clay cup for him. Seth smiled and lightly inhaled. The water was clean and didn't smell stale at all.