“He looks poor,” John said flatly.
“So what?” Rialta asked.
“So he’s not going to be able to pay much of anything, is he? And he probably doesn’t even have a decent quest for us. He probably wants us to pick up his groceries or help him cross a busy street or something.”
“Even if that is what he wants us to do, it’s not like there are any better quests around here today,” Rialta said, nodding at a nearby mob of businesspeople who’d been dolling out quests to caddy their briefcases around town. “Or would you prefer we backtrack and do whatever is necessary to ‘earn’ Gerald?”
“She’s got a point, John,” Remmy muttered.
John sighed. “Fine. But if this goes nowhere, I call the shots on how we find our next quest. Is that a deal?”
Rialta smiled. “Deal.”
“All right!” Remmy said, thrusting his hand forward to initiate a rallying cry, but John and Rialta ignored him.
Rialta walked toward the little old man on the street corner and offered him a friendly wave. The old man responded with a broad, gap-toothed grin as she approached.
“Good sir,” Rialta began, bowing before the man, “we humbly accept your quest. We are three strong and duly qualified adventurers. What is your directive?”
The old man smiled even more broadly, his beady eyes obscured by his gray, bushy eyebrows. “Good lady!” he cried. “It is very good to meet you! My name is Tom, and I find myself in great trouble. You see, a terrible beast has invaded my garden! I fear it is so fierce and dangerous that you and your companions may not be able to cope with its raw strength!”
Rialta considered Tom’s words for a moment, and a horde of the most terrible beasts she could imagine paraded through her thoughts. A pang of fear erupted in her as she considered the possibilities.
A cropel? A sheepstalker? Certainly not a—
She willed herself to think no further. She had made up her mind the night before. If she was going to earn the amount of money necessary to buy her mother’s home in time, she would need to take new risks.
“We shall handle it, whatever it is,” Rialta said. She was surprised and impressed to find herself wearing a grin which was far more confident than how she actually felt.
“Why, this is most welcome news! Come along, you noble adventurers!” He turned away from the trio toward a side street leading to the outskirts of the city. “To victory! To glory!”
“Yes sir!” John said enthusiastically as he deftly checked Tom’s pants pockets. Rialta shot him a fierce glare. John rolled his eyes and ceased what he was doing, but Rialta was almost certain he had slipped a small, glittering something into his own pockets.
The four of them traveled together for what felt like nearly an hour. They had left the city proper and now found themselves scaling a winding dirt road which ran along a rocky hillside. Wherever they were heading, it was not someplace Rialta had ever been before.
“Couldn’t you have just made a portal to get us up here, Rialta?” John asked, wiping sweat from his brow.
“Portals are seriously advanced magic, John,” Rialta replied. “I have not learned how to cast them yet.”
John sighed. “That’s a damned shame.”
“Oh, easy now! There’s no need for such sordid language, young man,” Tom said. “Take heart! We’re almost there!”
Despite the long journey, Tom proceeded with surprising speed. John and Rialta kept up with him with some difficulty, but Remmy had a particularly difficult time navigating some of the steeper portions of the terrain. When they finally crested the hilltop, the landscape evened out into a wide, grassy plain. Tom led them only a few more paces down a dirt path before proclaiming, “Here we are!”
They stood outside a small but well-kempt cottage sitting amid a tiny little village of similar homes, all of which seemed to have been long since forgotten by the rest of society. A massive, sprawling willow tree dominated the front yard of Tom’s house, its long, winding limbs stretching out across most of the property. A gentle breeze drifted by, and wind chimes jingled from beside the front porch. The passing wind carried with it an invigorating chill mingled with the scent of freshly cut grass. Rialta idly wondered what it was like to live here in this cozy place, far from the anxieties plaguing the massive city below.
Tom led the trio up the side of the lawn toward a tall wooden fence on the left side of the house. Now that she’d had the opportunity to get a better view of the property, Rialta was surprised to find a strange mixture of emotions welling up within her as she looked upon the old man’s cottage. A deep nostalgia took hold of her. It was a feeling of inexplicable pining, and perhaps just a touch of bittersweet joy—something akin to recalling the companionship of a long-lost pet dog. She would not have been able to describe it or explain it if anyone had asked her to, but this little old home seemed to exude peace and love. Perhaps Remmy was experiencing whatever this feeling was too, for he seemed to suddenly become extremely interested in a fencepost in the distance, and he turned away from the others and wiped his long sleeve across his eyes. John, however, remained as unreadable and impassive as ever.
“My garden is in the backyard just beyond that fence,” Tom said, interrupting the silence and tearing Rialta away from her thoughts, “but I think it would be better if you all saw the beast from my kitchen window. That way you’ll have a chance to prepare yourselves and come up with a strategy about how to handle it.”
“Sounds good to us, sir,” Rialta replied, clenching her fists and looking toward the fence leading into the backyard. “Show us the way.”
Tom produced a key from his trouser pockets and opened the front door to let John, Rialta, and Remmy inside. As soon as they stepped over the threshold, it was immediately evident that Tom was a man of very modest means. The home featured a single large living space with a kitchenette in the far-right corner, an old sofa resting against the left wall, a lumpy down mattress immediately to their right, and several large bookshelves along the wall opposite the entrance. The home was clean and well cared for, but nearly everything inside was exceptionally worn. John completed a cursory visual assessment of the place before casting an angry, knowing glance at Rialta. She, in turn, stared daggers back at him. Remmy didn’t seem to notice any of this, casually looking about the cottage as if lost in thought.
“Look here,” Tom said in a hushed whisper as he crept toward the window above the sink in the kitchenette. He pulled aside the window’s dusty curtains and nodded his head toward the backyard. Rialta tip-toed up to the window and cautiously peered outside.
The fenced-in yard was as impeccably kept as the inside of the cottage. Perfectly groomed, emerald-green grass stretched from one end to the other. The only exception to this sight of horticultural perfection was a large, lumpy patch of dirt toward the back. It was a mess of earth with bits and pieces of scattered leafy greens, carrots, eggplants, zucchini, and other vegetables Rialta couldn’t quite identify. Sitting in the middle of the messy mound was an enormously chubby groundhog, his belly bouncing up and down as he chomped on half a zucchini.
“Where’s the monster?” Rialta whispered, turning to Tom.
Tom looked at her askance. “Why, you’ve just looked right at it!”
Rialta immediately abandoned her attempts at stealth. “You can’t possibly mean that cute little groundhog?” she asked, standing up straight and pointing toward the garden.
“Precisely!” Tom replied, narrowing his gaze at the groundhog.
“All right,” John said abruptly as he heaved a labored sigh. He stormed to the front door and whipped it open, nearly lifting it from its hinges. Remmy and Rialta ran after him.
John continued across the porch, down onto the lawn, and toward the gate on the side of the house.
“Wait!” shouted Rialta. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to take care of the old man’s problem,” John said.
Rialta gasped. “You’re not going to kill
it?” she cried. She ran to catch up to him, Remmy following close behind her.
John carelessly kicked open the wooden gate at the side of the house, strode into the backyard, and approached the garden. The groundhog had since moved on to eating a bulbous green bell pepper. Rialta felt a jolt of panic as John crouched over the little creature. The groundhog was apparently too busy eating to notice John’s hulking form looming over him. Rialta withdrew her wand and had aimed it directly at John when he suddenly stood up straight. He was carrying the groundhog by the fat of its neck, holding it up so that its gaze was level with his own. John gave the little creature an indifferent stare. The groundhog sneezed, shooting flecks of half-chewed vegetables onto John’s face and chest.
John grunted, then walked over to the low fence in the back of the yard and gently placed the groundhog on the other side. The groundhog cast a single, sorrowful glance back at the old man’s garden, then hurried off into the woods beyond Tom’s yard.
“Mission complete!” Remmy shouted, pumping a fist in the air.
“I guess so,” Rialta said, as she put her wand back in her belt.
“Well done, the three of you, well done!” Tom cried as he waddled into his backyard. “Now, I believe there was a promise of a reward in exchange for your efforts, was there not?”
John, Remmy, and Rialta smiled at each other, eager to collect the reward.
“Come inside and I’ll fetch your money,” Tom said.
They followed Tom into the house once more, where he was retrieving a small pouch from behind a large book resting atop one of his bookshelves. “Here we are!” he said, and he began digging through the coin purse. “That’s a bronze piece for you,” he said, plopping a single coin into Remmy’s outstretched hand. “One for you, miss,” he said, dropping another coin into Rialta’s hand. “And one more for you, good sir!” he shouted, giving John a copper piece as well.
“Oops!” John said as he threw the coin across the room, where it landed behind the couch. “Aw gee! I dropped it! Could you by any chance go get that for me, Tom?”
“But of course, m’boy!” the old man exclaimed. “Now let’s just see here, where could it have gone?” He began to fuss about the house looking for the coin, his back turned to the trio.
John immediately began his search of the cottage the moment Tom turned away from him. He started by snatching the coin purse from the shelf, then moved into the kitchen where he began to inspect a handsome silver vase.
“John!” Rialta whispered under her breath. “What do you think you are doing?”
“Stealing, obviously,” John replied in a low voice.
“But he is just an old man!” Rialta whispered back.
“This sure is taking me quite a long time,” Tom remarked from behind the couch.
John rolled his eyes at Rialta and dug into Tom’s purse, scooping out a few silver pieces which he dropped back onto the bookshelf. “Happy?” he asked.
Rialta was about to respond when Tom emerged from behind the couch holding John’s copper coin aloft. “Here it is, lad, here it is.”
“You know what?” John said, casting a sly grin at Rialta. “Why don’t you keep it, sir? The satisfaction of helping out a fellow citizen is more than enough payment for this noble adventurer,” he added with a bow.
Tom’s eyes welled up with tears. He simply nodded back at John, apparently too overwhelmed to reply. Moments later, he bowed them all out of his cottage with a final word of farewell.
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself!” Rialta hissed, turning to John.
“Why’s that?” John asked as he stepped down from the porch and made his way back to the path leading to the city.
“I should hardly have to answer that!” Rialta growled as she followed him along the path. “You just stole money from a frail old man!”
“Well of course he did,” Remmy said timidly. “He’s a thief, Rialta. He… well, he steals things.”
“There you have it,” John said with a casual shrug.
“And you are okay with that?” Rialta asked Remmy in disbelief.
“It’s not ideal, I’ll admit,” Remmy said. “But a thief is a thief. It’s in their blood, isn’t it? It’s their profession. It’s just what they do.”
Rialta stared at him in disbelief. “Remmy, you can’t seriously—”
“Rialta. I’m a thief,” John said, cutting her off. “Stealing stuff is kind of my one and only exclusive task.”
Rialta tugged at her hair, exasperated. “No it’s not!” she cried. “It’s supposed to be a misnomer! It just describes a style of combat! You’re not actually supposed to be a kleptomaniac!”
John let out a long groan. “Okay, then why isn’t the profession called ‘sneaker’ or ‘stabby guy’ or something?” Before Rialta could further object, he added, “Look, you’re missing the forest for the trees. We’re not here to squabble about the ethics of my profession, we’re here to make some money. And we make money by doing worthwhile quests. That last quest—the quest you picked—was clearly a pile of garbage. Who here thinks that Rialta sucks out of control at picking quests?” John raised his hand. Remmy raised his hand, too. They both looked at Rialta expectantly. Rialta sighed and raised her hand.
“There it is,” John said. “A deal’s a deal. I get to pick the next one. Everyone follow me.”
Chapter 7
Water, Water, Everywhere
Rialta quickly gathered that wherever John was taking them, it was certainly not a part of Laelynn she had been to before. Soon after they had returned from the hillside, they took the backstreets heading toward the docks and ports lining Laelynn’s coast. This part of town was rife with an inordinate number of decrepit buildings and shady alleys. John eventually led them to a filthy street lined with rundown pubs and questionable inns.
Rialta glanced from side to side as they proceeded along the street. “John, I know what we agreed to earlier, but I really wonder whether—”
“Oh hello there you lov-lovely,” said a very drunken, pale-faced man who had stumbled out of the door of a tavern adjacent to the nearby boardwalk. Rialta stopped and glanced up at the shingle over the establishment to discover that it was very aptly named The Pit.
“You, you, you—you’re just a beautiful one there, aren’tchyeh,” called the man, looking at Rialta and making his way toward the group. As he came closer, Rialta could see several large, splotchy, brown stains on his fraying beige shirt.
John cracked his knuckles and took a step toward the strange man, but he was too late. Rialta grabbed her wand from her waist, reached her right hand high into the air, and snapped her fingers. A sharp cracking sound ripped through the air. The drunken man hurtled off the boardwalk and plunged into the ocean as if caught by a reverse fishing line. Several seconds later, he resurfaced, coughing in between a long string of slurred obscenities directed at Rialta while he swam toward the distant beach.
“Are you just about done showing us the sights?” Rialta asked, turning back to John. “I would like to get back to the part of society where it is actually frowned upon to be a gross, unruly drunk on a Tuesday afternoon.”
John sighed. “Finding a decent quest isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. You’ve got to dig a bit deeper sometimes. I’ve found plenty of good stuff down here in the past. If you want to stay safe and go back to your quaint little existence as a fry cook or whatever it was you used to do, you go right ahead. Those of us who want to actually make some gold,” he motioned to Remmy, “are willing to slog through some mud to reach our goals if we have to.”
“I am hardly concerned about my safety,” Rialta said, jerking her thumb toward the drunkard still clumsily swimming toward the shore. “It just seems to me that this is not exactly an ideal location to find a quest worthy of our talents.”
John scowled. “Well if you had the experience I have—”
“Hey you guys, enough of your angry chit-chat. Come over here,” said a figure hidden in the shade of a near
by alley.
“What, us?” Remmy asked, facing the stranger.
“Yeah, you,” the man replied.
Remmy looked back at John and Rialta. “All of us?” he asked.
The shrouded figure hesitated. “Well, yeah,” he said, nonplussed. “Obviously.”
“What do you want with us?” Rialta asked.
“Nothin’ much, nothin’ much,” the stranger replied, stepping out from the shade of the alley. To Rialta’s surprise, the stranger turned out to be a very well-dressed young man. He sported a very sharp, short haircut and wore a pressed three-piece suit. A perfectly folded pink pocket square was tucked beside the lapel of his pinstriped jacket. “The name’s Jack. I got a pretty simple job for you all, if you’re interested. It pays rather well, too.”
“Uh, I think you mean, ‘It pays good rather well,’” Remmy corrected him, incorrectly. John nodded in agreement.
“Okay, first of all, no,” Rialta said, glaring at Remmy. “And second of all,” she added, turning to Jack, “this all sounds really fishy. Who are you, anyway?”
“…Jack,” Jack offered with a frown. “I literally just told you that ten seconds ago. Are you three not workin’ with a full deck or something?”
Rialta sighed and shook her head. “I understand what your name is. I was only hoping for a bit more detail about who you are and what you want from us. What exactly do you want us to do for you, Jack?”
Jack looked far off into the distance and shrugged. “I just need a bit of muscle, really.” He conjured a silver toothpick from inside his coat and effortlessly flipped it into his mouth with his thumb. “You just gotta’ watch some cargo on this here ship as it makes a trip to that there island,” he said, pointing beyond the docks to a hazy little landmass near the horizon. “You will have to watch over the cargo that comes back as well. Should take about four hours, all things considered. The job pays three hundred gold apiece.”
“That’s more like it!” Remmy said. “We’re in!”
John nodded, a greedy grin curling his lips.
A Quest for Chumps (Departed Dimensions Book 1) Page 4
