by Logan Jacobs
“Exactly, which is why we need to figure out a better spot around here,” Ashe sighed as she crossed her arms, but I could tell she was warming up to the fairy a bit.
“Do you know of anywhere?” I asked.
The fairy thought for a moment and tapped one finger against her tiny lips. “Well, you definitely don’t want to be this close to the entrance, but you could check out the area behind Medusa’s Palace.”
Ashe coughed back a laugh, and I grinned. This was the same area we’d killed the gorgons last night.
“We’ve seen the place,” I replied nonchalantly. “It’s not really the kind of setup we’re looking for.”
“I need a bed,” Ashe added, and another hint of her demon voice slipped out.
The tinsel fairy’s huge eyes got even bigger, and her white wings fluttered so fast, they let off a buzzing sound.
“Well…” she folded her arms under her chest as she thought. “Have you gone down the hill?”
“Down the hill?” I repeated with a frown.
“Yes, there’s a lovely area deeper in the Shadow Quarters, but it’s hidden out of sight for a reason.” She winked.
“And what does that mean?” Ashe asked impatiently.
“You’ll find out when you get there,” the tinsel fairy giggled. The high-pitched laugh grated in my ears, and I tried not to cringe at the delightful sound.
“What should we expect to find there?” I queried.
“Oh, I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise for you, but you’ll soon see what I mean.” The tinsel fairy shrugged.
“This better not be a trap,” I warned her. “You’ve been helpful so far, but we don’t appreciate being double-crossed.”
“And we loooove to punish,” Ashe purred in a deadly tone.
“Ooo, me, too!” The fairy smirked as her big eyes suddenly flashed with malice. “Punishing is soooo much fun, but I’m afraid you won’t have the need to punish me. Follow the string of lights, and you’ll soon see where you’re going. Honestly, it’s safer for you to be down there than it is up here.”
The fairy gave us another manic smile and then turned to leave, and her large wings flapped gently in the wind that whipped through the alley.
I appreciated the information she gave us, especially the stuff to do with the entrance area. I hadn’t had great luck in the inns or the outer avenues of the Shadow Quarters, and I just hoped the place the tinsel fairy directed us to was better than where we stood right now.
We left the alley cautiously and kept a close eye on everyone we passed as we tried to find the string of lights the fairy had directed us to. A long line of trees had been planted toward the end of the marketplace, and at first, I thought it was another entrance to the forest surrounding the city, but as we got closer, I noticed a faint twinkling of lights sparkled through the leaves.
I couldn’t tell how these lights were igniting, since the strings appeared to be nothing more than thin, silvery threads, and the twinkling lights floated in the air along the strings.
Ashe and I shared a look of intrigue and crossed into the shadowy, gnarled grove. Then we came out on the other side, and Ashe snickered.
“Okay, maybe she wasn’t lying,” the demon woman allowed.
The first thing I noticed was the muddy, grassy hill that rolled down and into another grove of oaks. This area was hidden by more of the same oaken trees on both sides. The same magical lights had been hung up in the trees lining the hillside, and a white light lit up the green grass in the shadows far below.
“I’ll feel safer when we get down there, though,” I replied. I could smell a few more interesting beings in the area, I knew that for certain, so I wasn’t going to celebrate anything until I confirmed we weren’t being led into a trap.
Ashe and I followed the hill and the delicate lights, and as we trekked further down the grassy mound, the path twisted a few times to bring us closer to the trees. Then we neared the white light at the bottom, and it turned out to be two beacons, both with large flames that crackled and popped from inside their iron cages. The beacons sat on either side of a path, like it marked the entrance to this new place. The grassy path instantly changed into cobblestones as soon as it passed beyond the beacons, and while the trees encroached on this area, I could tell this wasn’t the same forest that surrounded Rengfri.
The trees were a different species, and they grew more sparsely, although they cast dense shadows beneath their gnarled boughs like they tended to do around the Shadow Quarters.
I then heard some strange, wavering music up ahead, and I caught the intoxicating smell of meat on the breeze. My stomach began to rumble at the thought of devouring more of that bread and stew, and I knew Ashe must have been starving, too, now that she’d been in a human form for a little while. Once we surveyed the area, we would have to focus on getting some sustenance.
The entrance path led us toward an area where there consisted of several rings of wooden houses and covered wagons. Some of the wagons had the faint remnants of paint down the wooden sides, like they had been used for something else in the past, but were abandoned for ages after that.
Now, they appeared to be used as homes, and a dark elf was sitting on the steps of one of the wagons with his black hair pushed back over his shoulders. He wore a pair of black pants, a worn-out top hat, and a red velvet jacket, and a thin pipe was held delicately between two of his slender fingers. Every time he took a draw from the pipe, perfect circles of green smoke would puff from his mouth, and his thin lips curled into a sneer as we passed.
The string of delicate lights continued to trace themselves all above the entire circumference of the area. It wasn’t a huge, vast part of town, like the other places we had witnessed in Rengfri, but it was big enough to hold the many creatures that resided here. I couldn’t see the edges of the farthest circles of houses and wagons, but I spotted some more tinsel fairies drifting around the open area, and another flew in and out of the string of lights and giggled to herself like a maniac.
A large fire was started in the pit at the center of the closest ring of wagons, and a trio of banshees skipped around the fire as they ordered it to continue growing. The banshees’ black dresses blew around them in the air, and their long gray hair bounced around to the movements of their dance, but none of them wore the symbol of the Church on their necks like the last banshee we’d seen.
As well as the rings of houses and wagons, there was also a broad marketplace to the left. A stone well stood in the middle, just like all the other areas I’d seen, and some sturdier stalls had been set up in the space around it. These stalls were mostly made of old stones and bricks and looked like they’d been here for a while.
There were more shops than I could count, and some well-dressed, female dark elves seemed to own some of the nearest stalls. A half-goblin ran another, and an orc was seen slumped against the side of a third. He sold rotten-looking shrunken heads of all breeds and had some bready food in his hands that he shoved into his large mouth while crumbs trickled all down his clothes.
I then spotted a lady as she swiftly made her way through the crowded marketplace. Her hair was long and white-blonde, and she wore a skin-tight, jade-green dress that stopped at her thighs. Two thin straps looped over her shoulders to hold the thin garment in place, but her feet were bare, and the dress had a subtle shine to it that reflected off her legs. Then I noticed the same shine appeared to continue all over her skin, almost like scales.
This lady was a mermaid, but she had changed into her human form to walk the land.
There were other, not so beautiful beings who mingled around the mermaid woman. A group of angry dwarves kept to the side, but they stared around the open area with angry expressions etched onto their faces. Two of them had wild, curly beards that covered half of their wrinkled faces, yet they all wore similar clothing. It looked like they were about to go into battle with their leather outfits and steel armor, but I had a feeling this was what they wore on a daily basi
s, since food and wine stained their cuirasses.
I also spotted a couple of slimy green goblins, and a being I hadn’t seen in at least a few hundred years: a satyr. She had the torso of a human, with a scrap of red leather that covered her chest, but her lower half was that of an animal. Her legs were long and covered in thick brown fur, and she walked elegantly on two hooves. Two thick horns curled around the side of her head, and her hair was shaggy, brown, and braided at both sides. She looked around the marketplace as if she was taking in her surroundings, but she stood proud and mighty, like she wasn’t scared to put up a fight if one arose.
Most of the carts and stalls here held even more interesting items than the ones near the outer edges of the Shadow Quarters. As well as food and materials, I also noticed some jewelry and brightly-colored gems on display. Some stalls sold every size of vial imaginable with swirling liquids inside, while others sold goods in discrete leather satchels or crates. I noticed a few of the crates were jumping and shaking on their own, but I didn’t bother to ask the stall owners what was inside of them.
Ashe and I checked out some stalls briefly as we passed them, but we didn’t stand there for long enough to get a good look since we were still getting our bearings among the locals.
“Have you noticed anything strange about the humans here?” Ashe whispered to me.
I furrowed my brow and glanced around, but it took me a moment to spot any humans among the winged creatures, or mottled gray flesh of the hulking orcs. Then I spotted one older woman who appeared human, and she was sitting near the central well with her purple cloak pulled up over her scraggly white hair.
I shook my head at Ashe. “Looks normal to me, why?”
“Look at her hands,” the demon woman whispered.
I did as she said, and that’s when I realized the old woman was slowly and methodically turning her fingers around and around. Her gaze wasn’t set on anything in particular, but while she twirled her gnarled fingers, the dirt in front of her legs churned in tiny spirals.
“She’s a witch,” I realized.
“That’s right,” Ashe snickered. “I saw another one with vibrant green eyes, too, so there’s all kinds of witches here. That one over there is a White Witch.”
“How can you tell?” I asked as I watched the old witch stir up the dirt.
“Her nails look pearly,” the demon woman explained. “I’ve killed White Witches before. They seem so innocent at first, but those fingers could blind any being within ten yards of that woman. She could suffocate us all with a turn of her hand, too.”
“Not bad,” I said with a grin. “I think I prefer these humans to the others we’ve met so far.”
“I do as well,” Ashe purred. “Witches at least have the decency of showing their true colors. Plus, if they’re living down here, this place must be much safer from Church raids.”
“True,” I agreed. “Witches are burned up by the Church faster than half these other beings.”
I watched the old White Witch for another moment, and she looked entirely harmless while she sat idly stirring up the dirt. Her sunken cheeks and frail shoulders almost made me feel sorry for her, but then her eyes drifted in my direction.
They were stark white in the irises, with jet black pupils, and the old woman smiled wide as she looked me directly in the eye.
Then she nodded with respect and turned away.
“I might like it down here,” I chuckled.
The farther we strolled through the winding marketplace, the more I started to feel this area could be just what we were looking for. There were plenty of halflings around, and even more full-fledged elves, orcs, and goblins, but the beings were better dressed down here than they were in the outer edges of the Shadow Quarters.
They wore corseted dresses, velvet jackets, satin shawls, and laced up leather boots. Some of their clothes were shoddily made, but layered in a way that made the creatures seem oddly decadent, and there was a very mystical atmosphere to the entire area. The air buzzed with the intermingling magical energies of the creatures, and the various scents of greed, lust, cunning, and thievery of all kinds drifted around me nonstop. The wavering music and dancing banshees gave me the impression these beings lived in comfort here, too, and I was relieved to see it.
Apparently, there were many different layers to the Shadow Quarters, from the entrance, to Medusa’s Palace, to this new mystical place in the grove of oaks, and as we passed beyond the eccentric marketplace, the area only continued to expand.
More shack-like homes and a few more covered wagons stretched ahead of us, but there were also stone houses tucked along the pathways between the trees. We would soon need a new place to sleep, and it looked like there could be a spare room somewhere here for us. From the outside, given the state of the brick and wood that had been used to make the buildings, I could tell they were in a far better condition than the inn I had stayed in.
This place held money as well as forbidden magic.
Once we had done a full lap, and we had witnessed more dancing, more fire beacons, and even more creatures, we decided to head back in the direction of the outer quarters to deal with a couple things there.
“What do you think?” I asked as we walked back through the eccentric marketplace.
“I like the environment.” Ashe grinned. “It smells like debauchery around here, and it seems richer and safer, too.”
“It does,” I agreed, and we turned around the side of another covered wagon.
A cauldron, large enough to boil a body inside of, was set up beside it, and it was smoking from the top. A female half-elf with braided blue hair and a short, scrappy skirt was stirring the contents, and whatever liquid she had in there was bubbling manically like the pits of lava in the Hellscape.
“Not bad at all,” I snickered to myself.
“I feel like my stomach is boiling, though,” Ashe added with a fuming sigh as we passed it. “Are you hot? Or tense? I’m glad to have found this place, but more and more, I feel like I should kill someone just to keep my stomach quiet.”
“Oh, we should eat,” I realized. “I forgot to mention, our human forms are not very resilient. I just ate yesterday, and I’m already starving.”
“What?” she scoffed and arched a silver eyebrow. “Already?”
“I know,” I snorted. “But come on, I smelled something pretty good back the other direction. We have to get our clothes now, anyways, and it’d probably be best if you don’t kill our future neighbors over your appetite.”
We followed my nose and the strings of magical lights to the hillside, and then we headed up to the outer areas of the Shadow Quarters and over to where a delicious smell was wafting from a small stall. Just nearing the stand made my mouth salivate with a vengeance, and for once, the excitement of eating something overpowered the excitement of devouring evil.
This stall had large pieces of meat hanging from iron hooks. Each one looked like the leg of an animal, and the meat glistened in the afternoon sunlight while small droplets of grease dripped from the legs and onto the slate slab below.
A half-goblin stood behind the stall, and he wore a beige tunic with a white garment tied around his middle. The thin piece of clothing had dirty stains rubbed into the front, and it reminded me of the aprons some of our flesh peelers wore in the Hellscape.
“How many?” the half-goblin asked us as he pointed toward the hanging meat, but he paled to a sickly shade of green while he met my eyes. He was able to hold my gaze, but it was obvious he didn’t want to.
“Two,” I replied.
“Six pieces,” he said automatically.
I counted out six coins from my sack, and once I paid the half-goblin, he unhooked two of the legs and handed them over to us without saying another word.
The leg of meat had been carved down to the bone at the bottom which gave me a handle to hold, and I gratefully snatched my portion as my hunger piqued just at the sight of it.
Ashe grabbed her share of the
food, too, and she wasted no time in devouring it. Her teeth made light work of shredding the pink meat, and her cheeks bulged with the amount of food she had in her mouth.
I copied Ashe’s movements and pulled away at the food with my teeth. It was slightly salty, but also rich and tender, and the juices dripped onto my hand, but I was too interested in finishing off the feast to bother wiping it away. The mix of flavors in my mouth were like an explosion, and every time I took a bite, a new bout of pleasure washed through my veins.
It amazed me how quickly the hunger subsided with only this large hunk of meat in my gullet. I worried I’d have to buy four more just to satisfy my desire for food, but I was relieved to find one large leg sufficed.
Ashe, however, continued to pick away at the tiny scraps of meat that stuck to the bone in the middle. She made sure she ate every last piece before she threw the leg bone to the ground, and then the beautiful silver fiend focused on licking her fingers clean of the juices.
“I’d have ten more of those,” she murmured. “I didn’t know beings on the surface world ate such good food.”
“I’ll tell you one thing, don’t try and hunt,” I replied. “I made that mistake with a dead rabbit on my first day here, and these human bodies cannot face raw meat as well as we used to in the Hellscape.”
“I’d take this leg meat over a dead rabbit any day,” Ashe said with a dreamy look in her eyes.
“Stew and bread is good, too,” I added.
“What’s that?” She frowned and stopped licking her fingers for a moment.
“Some type of liquid with meat in it.” I shrugged. “The bread is soft, though, and I’d like to find more of it.”
“How about we find some more when we find a new place to stay?” Ashe suggested.
“Deal.” I grinned. “But that reminds me, I do have to pay a guy for some stew I ate yesterday. We’ll stop there on the way to get our clothes.”
