A Roll of the Dice

5

"So lord Yedal was only bringing the money to the keep," Fern said, "he wasn't party to the plot."

"No," the mysterious man said, "this is a much larger plot than any of you realize, adventurers."

"Bah," Tadon said, "adventurers? I'm simply a mercenary."

"A mercenary that's worming his way into many dangerous places," the man said.

"Speaking of which," Tadon said, "perhaps we should be more quiet, lest prying ears hear our conversation."

Fern waved a dismissive hand. "Cryill has the whole tavern distracted, don't worry."

The tavern they were in was filled with the chanting of some tune that Cryill was playing, and he wasn't exactly sober. Yet it was rather impressive, despite his drunkeness, how deftly he fingered the strings on his new lute.

"No matter," the mysterious man said. "I will not say much more for the price you have paid me."

He got up, and without so much as a farewell, drifted into the crowd. Fern jumped up in a subtle manner, but as she strode away from their table, she found that the man had expertly gotten away.

"I don't see what you're fussing about," Tadon asked as Fern sat back down. "We got a fair amount of information, enough to look for some leads."

"Hmph," Fern grunted. "Tadon, you fail to realize that while we got information out of him, he was also getting information out of us. That's what these informants do. He paid close attention to what questions we were asking."

Tadon turned his face to the side, and cursed.

"I had to curtail the damage you were causing," Fern said, "with every word."

"Sorry miss."

"I told you to call me Fern," she said in a lighter tone.

"I'm sorry miss. Miss Fern."

"It was rather generous of you," she said, "to call yourself a mercenary. You're more of a guard for hire. A mercenary in a sense, but not one who does any work on the offense."

"And what of you then?" Tadon asked. "Are you an adventurer?"

"I dislike labels," Fern said. She picked up her glass, now empty of tea. She looked at the ripples in the glass. "I simply do what I want, and I don't care what people think of it."

A gentle smile came to Tadon's face. "I... I quite like that idea Fern."

"Of course," she snorted in amusement, "one can always go to far with that way of thinking."

She nodded towards Cyrill, who was now trying to dance while playing his lute. She kept him in the corner of her eye, waiting for the moment in which he'd inevitably trip and break another lute.

"So you're going to follow this lead then?" Tadon asked.

Fern shook her head. "No, going to Feathermarch keep would be extremely obvious. We asked questions about it. No Tadon, where I'm going is to the Giant's Knuckles."

"The Giant's Knuckles?"

"It's an area of badlands to the north," she said. "You might've caught what our informant mentioned that our secret group does not make their main base near Feathermarch. They'd need to be somewhat nearby to perform their operations. Since bandits avoid the iron forest, that's where we'd find them."

Tadon's mouth was slightly agape. "My... Fern... you're quite brilliant you know."

Fern surprisingly caught herself blushing.