Vainglory 1.8 - The Hen's Nest

I appreciate any feedback! Is it going too slow? Is it interesting? Am I not capitalizing on the current hot buzzwords on RR? :)

-Plum

8 – The Hen’s Nest

Ward followed Fayella through town, down winding streets, up steep hills, and past buildings and people of all kinds. The strangeness of the animals and people began to fade to a sort of background noise in his head as he saw more and more of the small, stocky folk, the colorful hair and eyes, and the completely alien-looking types. Fayella was patient with him as he paused to stare at interesting buildings and people making a spectacle of themselves.

One such group, a handful of people like the scavs he’d fought, performed a juggling act on a corner, howling and carrying on whenever anyone tossed copper-colored glories into the wooden box they’d set out for tips. After watching for a while, Ward felt obliged to do the same, so he dug his hand into his coat pocket and pulled out one of the small, light coins. It was easy to distinguish by feel from the heavier, larger coins in his pouch. He was careful to button up the pocket as he extracted the coin, then tossed it into the box. The juggler in the front, a big, black-furred man, howled in appreciation. Ward chuckled and followed Fayella around the corner.

“It’s just up here. See the yellow siding?” Fayella pointed ahead and to the left. Ward looked ahead to see a large, three-story yellow building with a tarnished copper roof. A carved wooden sign hung out over the sidewalk proclaiming it the Hen’s Nest.

“Colorful.”

“My aunt used to be a poultry farmer. That’s where I was last night, out on the farm.”

“Oh yeah? You do work there, too?”

“No, it’s just a country home now. I was practicing my riding. I’m hoping to enter the next derby.”

“Derby?”

“Aye, they have a race at every fourth opening festival.”

Ward was starting to feel dumb with all his questions, but he pressed on, “Opening festival?”

“The catacombs! They open once a month, remember?”

“Right, right.” Ward followed her up the steps and through a pair of well-used double doors. The inside of the inn was just as brightly painted as the outside. The ample, open space was bordered by a bar on the left, a wooden stair straight ahead, leading up, and couches, tables, and a huge fireplace on the right. The wooden floors were well-used but clearly maintained lovingly, just like the painted walls with their garish shades of yellow and orange. Light streamed from the many windows, and the space was warm. Ward’s stomach began to rumble as soon as the aroma of roasting meats touched his nostrils.

“Auntie!” Fayella called out, walking toward the bar. Ward scanned the room again, noting the patrons sitting here and there, some with food and some not. A man with round spectacles sat on the couch directly before the fireplace, reading a newspaper. Ward kind of liked the image. He hadn’t looked at a newspaper since moving out of his dad’s place when he joined the Marines, and he felt a little pang of nostalgia seeing this one. “Ward, come here!” He jerked his head away from the fireplace to see Fayella standing by the bar, speaking to a middle-aged woman with features very similar to hers.

He walked over. “This your aunt?”

“Yes!”

“I could see the resemblance, but I would have guessed you were her sister.” Ward grinned and leaned against the bar. The woman’s narrowed eyes relaxed a little, and she smiled back.

“Oh, that’s a good one! I’m plenty old enough to be this one’s mom, which is what I basically am, considering my good-for-nothing sister disappeared into the catacombs when she was just a wee girl.”

Ward didn’t reply immediately, looking at Fayella to see how her aunt’s words might impact her. She wore a smile, but it looked forced, so he changed the subject, “Ah, yeah. Well, your niece here sold me on a room. Stopped me from renting one from that place near the gates . . .”

“Ronald’s!” Fayella supplied, quick to capitalize on Ward’s fib.

“Oh? You stole him from Ronald, did you? Good lass. Well,” she turned to Ward, “what sort of room would you like? Will you be staying long?”

“Not really sure, to be honest . . .”

“He’s going in!”

“Oh? A challenger?” Fayella’s aunt looked Ward up and down a little more carefully.

“Not for sure!” Ward shook his head, chuckling at Fayella’s enthusiasm. “I’m interested in it, that’s all.”

“Well, the next opening’s tomorrow, so you best decide quickly; you’ll need to purchase an entrance ticket! I suppose for business's sake, I should hope you don’t go in, but if you do, maybe that could be good too. Do you think you’ll stop by and share your story if you come out? We haven’t had a victor stay at the inn in a long while!”

“Well, sure. I don’t see why I wouldn’t. I’ll need a place to sleep, won’t I?” Ward winked at her and added, “Something smells damn good. You think I could get a plate? Oh, as far as my room goes, something with a comfortable bed and privacy is all I really care about.”

“A bath?”

Ward scratched the stubble on his chin; he was still thinking like he was on Earth—apparently, bathrooms weren’t standard. “Uh, yeah, I’d like a bath. Look, I’m new to this world. Do the rooms have toilets?”

“Some of ‘em, aye. Sounds like you want a suite, and I can give you the Grand Rooster for twenty a night, dinner and breakfast included!”

“Twenty?” Ward nodded, glanced at Fayella, and winked quickly. “Well, that’s awfully kind of you to offer me a discount, but I already agreed to twenty-five with Fayella while we walked this way.”

“Oh, did you, now? Well, if you struck a bargain, I appreciate you sticking to it. What a pleasure to have such a cultured guest! Why don’t you sit down here and have a meal while Fay gets your room ready?”

“Sounds perfect.” Ward shrugged out of his backpack and leaned it on the bar next to a high stool, then he took a seat.

“See you around, Ward.” Fayella squeezed his shoulder, a gentle touch that felt so good on his tired, sore muscles that he found himself yearning for more as she let go and left via the stairs.

“I’ve got stew and fresh bread at the moment. That be all right?” While she spoke, the aunt turned and picked up a large stoneware mug and held it under a tap. “House ale, too, of course.”

“Sounds damn good.” Ward took the mug and sipped the beer, finding it a bit foamy and warm for his tastes, but, as he’d said, it was damn good on a dry throat. He took a long pull, set the mug down, and asked, “Never got your name.”

“Oh, I’m sorry! I’m Fanna, but everyone calls me Fan.”

“Fan and Fay, huh?”

“That’s right! Don’t let her grousing fool you, either; we get along quite well.” She watched Ward take another sip of beer, then turned to the door that, he supposed, led to the kitchen. “I’ll get your food.”

As soon as the door swung shut behind her, Grace spoke up, almost making Ward choke on his beer, “You sure seem to be enjoying yourself, flirting with the townsfolk!”

Ward took a moment to swallow and gather himself before he turned to see her perched atop the stool beside him. “I’m not really flirting, and what do you expect? You don’t want me to be friendly?”

“There’s friendly, and then there’s friendly, Ward.”

“You’re nuts. I didn’t even say anything . . .” he cut himself off as the door swung open, and Fan walked out of the kitchen carrying a steaming, wooden bowl with a thick wedge of fresh, buttered bread protruding from the rim. She set the dish before him and laid a spoon with a linen napkin next to it.

“Enjoy!”

“Oh, I will! Thanks, Fan.” He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his coin pouch. “Just a sec,” he said, digging around inside, bypassing the golden hundred-glory coins and pulling out some silver ones. He set one of the small ones, about the size of a fingernail, representing five glories, and then two larger ones, ten glories each, on the bar. “For my stay.” The coins were minted in the same style, each with, strangely, Roman numerals on one side representing the value and then seemingly random etchings on the other. Ward had taken a minute when Gonjin paid him to look at the images and hadn’t found any two coins with the same one. The variety seemed endless: many depicted faces, some pictured weapons, others stars or mountains or wagons.

“Thank you, good sir!” Fan reached over the bar to slide the coins toward her. “I’ve some other patrons to see to. Enjoy your food. Fay will be along shortly to show you your room, I’m sure.”

“Thanks.” Ward tucked into the stew, enjoying the rich, flavorful broth, soft root vegetables, and hearty hunks of meat. He couldn’t tell if it was beef or something similar, but it tasted good, so he didn’t spend much effort wondering.

“Good?” Grace asked, leaning close and sniffing his bowl.

“You can’t tell?”

“I wish! I can pretend to eat some,” she snatched a piece of carrot from his bowl and stuffed it in her mouth, “but it’s fake. Next time you look away and back again, that carrot will still be in your bowl.”

“That’s no fun. Never getting to enjoy a tasty meal, I mean.”

“Well, true, but I do feel some of your enjoyment, so that’s nice.” She spun on her stool, glancing around the big room, then back to him. “I haven’t noticed any people with any kind of glow in their eyes, not since the blue monk killed your friend. I don’t think wizards are common here.”

“Wizards now?”

“I told you, there are a million names for people like you—mage, wizard, witch, sorcerer, warlock, conjurer . . .”

“I get it, I get it.” Ward held up a hand in surrender, then stuffed some broth-soaked bread into his mouth, chewing with gusto.

“Anyway, I guess since Cinder is the lowest Vainglory world, not many actual wizards come here. That’s good news for you, Ward.”

“Yeah?” He asked around his mouthful of food.

“Yeah! Not a lot of competition on the challenges.”

Ward swallowed his bite, sipped his beer, and said, “I’ve been thinking ‘bout all that. Why am I doing these challenges, exactly? I’m young and healthy; money doesn’t seem hard to make here—why not just try to start a new life right here?”

“Oh, brother! Is that the extent of your ambition? Don’t you want to see what’s out there? I open you up to a whole universe of possibilities, and you want to settle down in the first backwater town you see? Do you think Fayella is that cute? Come on, old man, think with your brain! What about that wizard duel? Didn’t that blow your mind? Imagine being able to say words like that!”

“Easy, easy!” Ward laughed, shaking his head. “I’m not saying I don’t want to see more, but, shit, from talking to Fayella and that old guy outside the gates, it seems the survival rate of these challenges isn’t stellar. You think I should risk everything?”

Grace slapped her hands to the sides of her head, squeezing her eyes shut. She muttered something Ward couldn’t make out, then she opened her eyes, folded her hands in her lap, and very calmly said, “Ward, I think I’m going about things wrong. I need to remember you don’t know shit about shit. Did you hear what I said about not seeing any other mages in this town?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“So, think about that. Ward, you’ve passed by hundreds, no, thousands of people! Don’t you see how uncommon it is to be able to gather and use anima? You have a real chance to be something special.”

“I was thinking about that. You keep saying that, but that scav I killed was bleeding tons of anima into the universe. I could only take a tiny amount of it. If it’s so great, why didn’t that guy mop the floor with me?”

Grace groaned and, through clenched teeth, said, “That’s what I’m trying to tell you, old man! He wasn’t a mage! That anima had gathered in him passively over the course of his life, but he couldn’t do squat with it!”

“But I can?”

“Yes!” Grace frowned and added, “Well, potentially.”

“So, what can I do?” Ward finished his beer and started mopping up the last of the broth in his bowl with his bread crust, waiting for an answer. When none came, he looked over to see Grace was gone, but Fayella was approaching across the common room. “To be continued, I guess.”

“Was your meal good? Need anything else?” Fayella asked, leaning against the bar nearby. Ward looked at her, wondering if Grace had been right; was he flirting? Not in his opinion, at least not more than he usually did. Had he been accused of being a flirt before? Sure, but in his mind, he was mostly just being friendly. Besides, this girl was way too young for him.

“It was great, and I’m all set. The room ready?” Ward stood up, pushing his empty bowl away from the edge and reaching down for his backpack.

“Yep. After me, sir.” Fay grinned at him, and Ward couldn’t help smiling back. He liked how she didn’t make any attempt to hide her missing teeth. Getting a good look at them like that, he saw she was missing one on the top-left and one on the bottom beneath it. Had she been struck in the mouth? He didn’t see any noticeable scars. He knew the curiosity was natural, but also that it was definitely not something he should ask about. Maybe she’d bring it up on her own eventually.

Fay led him up the stairs, down a short, yellow-painted hallway, and stopped at the end. “The Grand Rooster,” Fay announced, pushing the door open. Ward chuckled, stepping through the door; the name was funny, but he could see where it came from. The rugs on the wooden floor were red, the walls were painted red and black, and the big bed by the bay windows was covered in a fluffy red comforter. An alcove to the left opened into a partially separate room where an enormous copper tub sat next to an antique-looking toilet. Still, it was a toilet and not a chamber pot, as he’d secretly feared, so Ward was thankful for small mercies.

“Nice!” He walked over to the trunk at the foot of the bed and set his pack on top.

“You know where to find me if you need something. Oh, and thanks, Ward. You know, for making it sound like I did something smart for a change.”

Ward turned to see her still standing in the doorway, hands clasped before her. Her attitude was certainly a lot more subdued around the inn than it had been outside the gates. “Don’t mention it. Hey, let me know if I can help with anything else. I’m not sure what you were seeing the doctor about, but if it’s anything I can . . .”

“It’s nothing. Thanks for the offer!” She backed up quickly, pulling the door partway closed. “Enjoy your stay!” As soon as the door clicked shut, Grace was standing before it.

“I’m starting to think I can go ahead and walk about with you. I don’t think the people here are going to notice me.”

“Could run into that monk who melted Huseem . . .” Ward wasn’t sure he wanted Grace walking around with him constantly.

“Could, I guess.” She frowned, then walked over and hopped onto the bed, reclining on the thick pile of pillows. “Let’s get back to our earlier discussion. You absolutely should attempt the challenge, the, uh, catacombs.”

There was a plushly upholstered wooden chair next to the alcove leading to the bath, so Ward sat down in it, facing Grace on the bed. “Look, I’m not a boring guy. I’ve lived a pretty damn risky life by, you know, Earth standards. I’m interested in learning more about all the worlds and,” he waved his hand around expansively, “I don’t know . . . people and magic and shit. I’m not looking to die for no reason, though.”

“It’s not ‘for no reason,’ you doofus! That’s what I’ve been trying to explain. Do you remember that feeling when you absorbed that tiny bit of anima?”

Ward closed his eyes and thought back to how it had felt when those tiny, magical motes had sunk into his flesh. The tingles of pleasure, the brief feeling of being part of something vast and wonderful. Yeah, he could remember it. He cleared his throat and said as much, “Sure.”

“Well, that was a tiny scratch at the surface! If we can win some prizes in the challenges and use them to improve your vessel, there are depths of power and . . . fulfillment we can explore that you can only dream about.”

“My vessel?”

“Ugh! Your body! Your flesh! Your cellular structure. Let me think of an analogy you might grasp. You like guns, yeah?”

“Like? I dunno; I guess I like my pistol . . .”

“Okay, imagine if someone built a bullet out of a new, spectacular gunpowder. Imagine it was a hundred times more potent than regular gunpowder. What would happen if you fired a bullet like that out of your trusty little pistol?”

“It would explode.”

“Bingo! Anima is potent, Ward. Using it will likely mess you up, even the tiny amount you absorbed. Now, what if we invented a way to increase the density of your gun’s frame? What if we could make that metal a hundred times stronger?”

“Well, then I’d probably break my wrist shooting something like that . . .”

“Oh, brother! Ward, come on, don’t get lost in the weeds!”

“Relax! I’m joking. I get what you’re saying. I need to make my body stronger to use the anima. It doesn’t make sense, though. How could I absorb it but not use it?”

“No, you just don’t have all the facts yet. Let me try to explain a bit more. There are three kinds of people, speaking broadly and only with regard to anima and its use. The first are the average people, those like your friends downstairs, people without the ability to interact with anima. Christina, my previous host, called people like that ‘mundanes.’ The second category is people like you. They can see and interact with anima, but using the words to try to control it would rip their bodies apart. Some people call them ‘wordless.’ Finally, you have the third category, those who can see, harvest, and command the anima—‘resonants.’ To most people, though, you’re either a wizard or you’re not.

“So, to the folks downstairs, I’m a wizard, just cause my eyes shine a little in the right light?”

“Now you’re getting it.”

“You know, Grace, this is kind of like pulling teeth. What the hell can it do for me? What’s the point of being a wordless mage?”

“Ugh! You have passive benefits! Haven’t you noticed how great you feel? Sure, I took some years off your beat-up old body and fixed it up, but have you felt very tired since absorbing that anima? Have you been overly hungry or thirsty? Think about that! Have you had any trouble traipsing about for a couple of days with just a few gulps of water out of an old canteen? I bet you’re stronger and faster than you ever were back on Earth. You just haven’t been put to a real test yet. Now, imagine getting more and more anima as we improve your body. Imagine getting to the point where you can say some of the words and work real magic! Do you have any ambition, old man?”

“I can see what you’re doing.” Ward frowned. He could see it; he wasn’t a dummy. She was challenging his ego, trying to get a rise out of him. She was right, in a way, he supposed. He’d let his old job beat him down, wear him down. He’d been ready to do something small, something quiet, for the rest of his life. Things were different now, though, weren’t they? She’d hit the nail on the head describing how he felt. He might still look like he was in his thirties, but he felt better than he could remember ever feeling, even when he’d been in the best shape of his life after basic training. Did he want to settle down in a nowhere town and try to live a small, quiet life with magic and mystical worlds right in front of him? Really? “Hell no.”

“Huh?”

“Hell no, I don’t want to sit around in this little town. Let’s see what we can shake out of those catacombs.”

Grace hopped up so fast she practically levitated out of the bed. “That’s the spirit, old man! So keep your shoes on; you gotta go buy a ticket.”