by Pirateaba
“You should come inside. I’m sure Pawn will want to see you.”
She reached out for Erin. The girl’s skin was deathly cold. She muttered something.
“—know.”
“What?”
Erin shook her head.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what to do to stop it. But I do know what to do.”
She walked past Ceria, into the inn. The half-elf followed, watching. There was something in the human girl’s eyes.
Pawn half-rose in his seat when he saw her. Anxiety was written all over his face, although only Erin could see it. She smiled at him and sneezed.
The other adventurers stared at Erin. She ignored them. They were not important. Instead, she sat down as Toren rushed towards her with a towel. She patted the cold water off her and felt a bit more alive when he gave her a steaming mug of boiled water.
Olesm had been playing Pawn. But the Drake instantly stood to give her his seat. Erin shook her head.
“Go on. Keep playing.”
The Drake blinked at her, and then awkwardly sat down. Erin sat next to Pawn. At first the Antinium looked at her, but she smiled. It was very quiet in the room. After a while, Olesm coughed and awkwardly moved a piece forward.
Pawn played. The two played. Erin looked at the Workers and got them a chess set. It was strange. The Workers sat and began playing. The adventurers sat awkwardly. After a while Erin had Toren bring out some leftovers.
And it was still silent. So when the feeling in Erin couldn’t be contained she opened her mouth.
And began to sing.
It caught Pawn off-guard. He froze as he held a knight in his hand and stared at Erin. So did everyone else. But the awkwardness—the fear she might have felt was nothing. So Erin sang.
She had never been good at singing. Or rather, she’d never been as good at singing as she had at playing chess. But when she was a kid, before she’d quit going to church, she’d been part of the choir. She’d sung in the school choir and once, just once, her teacher had encouraged her to study singing.
But she hadn’t. Erin had played chess and forgotten how to breathe properly, stopped singing every week. But the music had lingered, and she’d never really forgotten how.
“I don’t know why you hurt inside or what was said to make you cry…”
She didn’t know why she started with a Lady Gaga song. But that one she’d always loved because it made her feel better. And Greatest was probably her greatest song.
Erin had no piano. No voice synthesizer, no backup choir; she didn’t even have a microphone. But she didn’t need those things.
Her voice filled up the room, and it seemed to her audience that even though only one person was singing, they could hear something else. The same song Erin had heard first while sitting in her room playing chess.
Was it one person singing or two? They heard another voice. Strange drums—the sound of a piano—a voice singing with electronic sound in ways they could never have imagined.
Ceria listened, and heard another voice, and a kind of music she’d never heard of wherever she’d gone. She closed her eyes, and thought of a girl who knew colors that Ceria had never seen in her life.
Olesm was playing. Pawn kept moving pieces, but that was a backdrop to the music. Erin finished her song and silence beat down again. It was oppressive so she chose another song.
The adventurers had never heard a ukulele played before. But even though Erin wasn’t playing one, they heard it now. And in her voice—a man’s voice. Singing.
“Somewhere over the rainbow way up high…”
She’d always loved Israel Kamakawiwoʻole’s version of that song more than the Judy Garland one. And she’d loved both with all her heart.
The song was lighter, happier in a way but in another way—not. Someone was crying. Erin kept singing, conjuring a piece of something the people in her inn had never heard before. A piece of immortal music.
Another immortal moment.
And then of course, she kept singing. Somewhere, Erin started singing Hallelujah and smiled as she remembered watching Shrek for the first time. The music poured out of her as Pawn played a game of chess, pausing to stare at her.
The other adventurers were silent. Ceria listened in silence. She was half Elf. Half of her had grown up knowing the fragments of forever—but the other half was still in awe.
But the humans listened to something that was not part of their world. They listened as Erin sang to their hearts.
“I have died everyday, waiting for you. Darling, don’t be afraid, I have loved you for a thousand years…”
Gerial wept into his mustache. The adventurers sat in silence. Yvlon closed her eyes and Cervial kept rubbing at his.
A moment of eternity. A song. A fragment of the past. A memory.
Immortality brought to life with every verse.
—-
She taught them one song. Here I Am Lord, a song from church. It mattered. It was important. And when she sang it, Pawn looked up.
First Erin sang.
“I, the Lord of Sea and Sky. I have heard my people cry. All who dwell in dark and sin, my hand will save.”
Erin sang with Ceria, two soft voices singing as the half-elf joined in.
“Here I am, Lord. Is it I, Lord? I have heard You calling in the night.”
And then the others joined in. Men and women, singing a song for a god this world had never known. By the end of the third verse all the humans were singing. Calruz leaned against the doorway, frowning, closing his eyes and listening, silent. Pawn listened as Erin sang, leaning against him, warming him.
“I will hold Your people in my heart.”
He shuddered then. And then when she looked at him he did not cry. The Antinium do not weep. But she still saw the tears in his soul.
And the night passed to day and Erin sang on. Small songs, grand songs. And the magic was with her, fading with every note. Until she simply sang and the moment was no longer forever. But it was enough. When Erin finally closed her eyes the inn was silent.
And though the Antinium didn’t smile she did. For him. For the both of them.
Erin closed her eyes and slept.
[Innkeeper Level 15!]
1.39
Ceria woke up first. It was an unconscious act on the part of her body that her mind wanted no part of. As the first rays of dawn hit her she opened her eyes and sat up in her bed.
It was too early. And despite her early rising, Ceria was not a morning person.
But some things were too hard to forget. It had been years—decades, really—since Ceria had needed to wake up this early. She was safe in this inn, among her friends and companions. Safe.
Yet it was impossible to forget some things.
Rubbing her face with her hands, Ceria decided that she was up. Remembering the past would only lead to nightmares, and she wasn’t about to wake the inn screaming.
So despite the early hour and lack of sleep, Ceria stumbled downstairs. She blinked around at the room.
“Dd.”
She’d meant to said ‘odd’, but her mouth wasn’t working. What was odd wasn’t that the common room of the inn was a mess—what was odd was that it was not.
Last night. Ceria rubbed at her eyes again and remembered. Music. A night that had lasted forever. Songs and—something else. Some instruments she’d never heard before, and beautiful words.
It felt like a dream. But it had been real, so it felt even more dreamlike. She remembered stumbling up to bed as the other adventurers left, still caught in that magical moment.
Yes—they’d left, but adventurers always create messes wherever they go. Mostly in the form of dead monster corpses and blood, but in this case in the form of empty dishes, dirt, spilled food and drink and coins scattered on the tables.
None of that was here now. The room was clean. In fact, in the morning light the polished wood practically sparkled at Ceria.
She found that mildly offensive.
But hunger was distracting her in no small way. She stumbled towards the kitchen—
And froze as a skeleton blocked the doorway.
“Wood rot.”
That was twice now that Ceria felt her heart was literally about to stop. She staggered backwards and pointed shakily at the skeleton.
“Don’t—do that!”
The skeleton was silent. Ceria blinked at it, still not quite thinking properly. It had a name, didn’t it? Erin called it—
“Toren, right?”
The skeleton made no reply. Well, it had probably been the one to clean up the room. Last Ceria had seen, the girl Erin Solstice had been sleeping next to the Antinium named Pawn.
Who also wasn’t here.
Something about that made an alarm bell go off in Ceria’s head, but she was distracted by pressing needs and the undead monster in front of her.
“Is your mistress up? I’d like some breakfast, but I can get it myself.”
Ceria went to move past the skeleton but its arm shot out and blocked her way. She stopped and stared at it.
“What are you—”
It put a finger to its yellowed teeth even as Ceria saw Erin rolled up in a blanket in the corner of the kitchen. She blinked at the girl.
“That’s where she sleeps?”
The skeleton made no sound, but it seemed irked that Ceria was still making sound. The half-elf shook her head. It was too early for this.
“I’m hungry.”
No response. The skeleton stared at her.
“I need food.”
Again, the pitiless cold flames of death were her only answer. Ceria tried to push the skeleton aside but it grabbed her hand warningly. She eyed it. It looked—well, it was Pisces’s creation. Carefully, she withdrew her hand.
“Fine. No waking her. But can you get me something to eat? Or—cook something?”
The skeleton seemed to consider this. After a moment it reluctantly nodded and walked into the kitchen. Unlike the many skeletons Ceria had seen or killed, this one walked with something approaching grace. It was a superior version of an inferior undead creature, and there was only one mage stupid enough to create something like that.
Pisces. Ceria narrowed her eyes at the skeleton as it trotted into the kitchen. It was certainly an improvement on his older work. For one thing, this skeleton was quite intelligent. But that in itself wasn’t a good thing. It meant he was closer to his goal. If he ever made an undead that was capable of leveling—
She blinked as Toren appeared in front of her. He was holding something.
“Is that…a loaf of bread?”
It was. An entire loaf, unmarred by imperfections such as slicing or condiments. Toren thrust it at her.
Ceria took it and stared at him.
“Am I supposed to eat this? I need something else, you know.”
The skeleton couldn’t sigh. But Ceria distinctly got that it would if it could. It stared at her, and then walked silently back into the kitchen.
Bemused, Ceria sat at a table and stared at the loaf. After a moment she fished out her belt knife.
She’d just managed to cut a few slices away when the skeleton reappeared. It put a bowl down in front of Ceria. She stared at that, too. It was also holding eggs.
Tor dropped the eggs in front of Ceria next to the loaf of bread. Then it added a bag of sugar. It went away and brought a cup and a pitcher of water out and then walked back into the kitchen.
Ceria stared at the food on her table. She eyed the eggs, bread, sugar, and the water. She caught one of the eggs before it rolled off the table and stared at it.
She shrugged.
—-
When Gerial stumbled downstairs, yawning and rubbing at his eyes he found Ceria dipping slices of bread into a bowl of egg yolks. Some sugar had also been added to a slice of bread and turned into a sandwich that made him forget entirely about breakfast.
The half-elf looked up as she munched on her dipped slice of bread. She was reading from her spell book.
“Oh. Hey. The innkeeper’s asleep so there’s no breakfast. But the skeleton got me some food. Want some?”
Gerial stared at the raw egg dripping from the slice of bread. He shuddered.
“That’s disgusting.”
Ceria rolled her eyes.
“You humans. You eat eggs all the time. What’s the difference between frying them and grabbing them from a nest?”
“A very big difference, thank you.”
Gerial sat at the table and tried not to watch Ceria chomping down her meal. He stared at her cup.
“Is that sugar?”
“Goes well with the water if you add enough. Want some?”
He hesitated.
“I think I’d prefer normal food, thanks. Where’s the innkeeper?”
“Still asleep, I think. She’s in there.”
Ceria nodded to the kitchen.
“That damn skeleton’s guarding her though, so don’t go in. This is all it gave me to eat.”
“I see.”
“Yup. So this is the only food you’re getting for a while. Want some?”
“Pass.”
The two adventurers sat in silence for a while. It wasn’t the first time they’d done this. Gerial was a morning person, and he’d often found Ceria awake. His stomach rumbled and he tried to ignore it.
After a while, the silence was too much. Gerial had to talk. He rubbed at his mustache and awkwardly cleared his throat. Ceria looked up and raised an eyebrow.
“So. Last night.”
“It was quite something, wasn’t it?”
“Something? It was—”
Gerial didn’t have words to describe it. He was no mage, and the memory of last night stuck in his head as something he could only describe as magical.
“What was that? Was it a spell?”
“A Skill, I think. Not one I’ve ever heard of. Must be a rare one.”
“But that wasn’t it either. Those songs—”
“Beautiful.”
Ceria smiled and Gerial nodded fervently. But she didn’t seem as awed as he was by the memory. She frowned slightly.
“It was amazing. But odd as well.”
“Odd?”
“I’ve never heard any of the songs she sang. Not one. And the music that came with it—did it sound like anything you’d ever heard before?”
“Not even in my dreams.”
But Gerial had dreamed of those songs last night. He felt his eyes sting a bit as he remembered and turned his head to wipe at them. Ceria shook her head.
“They were moving, but that’s not the point Gerial. It’s another mystery. Where did that music come from? How did that girl—”
She glanced up and stopped talking abruptly. That was another thing Gerial was used to, so when Erin stumbled out of the kitchen he was already turning to greet her.
“Good morning, Miss Erin.”
She stopped and stared at him. She was still wearing the same food-spattered clothing she’d had on yesterday. She also looked miserable.
“Morning.”
Ceria nodded at Erin. The girl shook her head.
“Is everything alright?”
Another shake. Erin paused, made a face and reluctantly opened her mouth.
“I hab a thore throat. And a cold.”
“Oh.”
“I see. My condolences.”
Erin staggered over to their table and flopped onto it. Gerial saw the skeleton walk out of the kitchen and stand behind her. Erin didn’t seem to notice—or care.
Ceria put down her book and pushed aside her bowl of egg yolk to peer at Erin. She shook her head.
“It must have been sitting out in the rain last night that did it.”
“I bnow.”
The half-elf was already focusing on Erin, her fingers glowing with pale green light.
“I can do something about the sore throat, but healing potions don’t cure colds.”
“Really? You can—”
/> Erin yelped as Ceria poked her throat. Instantly, the skeleton behind her raised a threatening fist but Erin sat back in her chair.
“Ow, that—hey! My throat is better!”
She still had a stuffed nose, though. Silently, Gerial offered her his handkerchief. Erin blew her nose and looked him gratefully.
“Sorry.”
“Think nothing of it.”
Erin sniffed and handed him the handkerchief back.
“I hate colds.”
She looked at Ceria and Gerial pleadingly.
“Magic?”
Ceria shook her head at Erin.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t cure that so easily. I only know basic healing spells and colds are tricky. Only the [Restoration] spell cures colds, as far as I know.”
“What? But it’s a cold.”
Erin whined at Ceria. The half-elf sighed, but remained patient.
“It’s a cold. The most common of illnesses. People have been using magic to cure it for so many years that magic no longer works.”
Gerial was surprised.
“That can happen? I thought—well, it’s just being sick, isn’t it?”
Erin groaned.
“Magic-resistant super-viruses. Just what I beed.”
More words that the adventurers didn’t quite understand, but both got the meaning. Ceria shrugged regretfully at Erin. Then she glanced at Gerial with a slight smile.
“Looks like breakfast is cancelled, Gerial. Unless you all want to risk getting sick before the ruins.”
He sighed.
“No helping it, I suppose.”
“I can make food.”
Erin tried to sit up, but Ceria gently shook her head.
“Some rest will do you more good than anything else. And you coughing into your food won’t do anyone any good.”
She was right, and Erin sagged back into her seat.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Gerial was already standing and stretching. He was hungry, but it wouldn’t be the first time he’d missed or deferred breakfast until a later date. He nodded at Erin.
“We’re going into the city. I think Calruz is already gone, but the others are still asleep. Don’t worry about feeding us—they can always go into the city.”
Ceria looked surprised. She glanced upstairs.
