The wandering inn volume.., p.313
The Wandering Inn: Volume 5, page 313
part #1 of The Wandering Inn Series
“I’ll—try and fix your teeth. It would be possible if I mixed teeth from another skull, but adding a foreign substance to a living body seldom works well. Still, if it’s just a…a cap on your teeth…I have bear teeth…”
Pisces muttered to himself. Erin murmured something and spat some blood. Mrsha offered her a cloth and Erin wiped at her mouth.
“Not a normal tribe. That wasn’t normal. I’ve only heard of Goblins riding wolves in stories. That had to be the Redfang tribe. But I never expected—”
Keldrass was muttering to himself. The other adventurers were groaning, or whispering, but making very little noise. It felt like a vigil. A wake. The Halfseekers had been gone. And the odds of them coming back were shrinking by the moment.
But no one wanted to say it. Pisces was bending over Erin, mending her teeth by attaching shaped enamel to her broken teeth and cursing the blood when the door crashed open. Halrac stood in a flash as everyone spun. He drew the arrow to his cheek and froze.
“Help.”
A figure stood in the doorway. A bleeding shape. Moore staggered into the room, but something was wrong. He moved awkwardly, in jerking motions. And he was holding something. A dark shape, bleeding.
“Seborn.”
“Help him.”
Moore whispered. He placed the Drowned Man on a table. Seborn jerked. Blood was spilling from his mouth. Pisces fought off the paralysis and rushed over to him.
“Healing potion—”
Bevussa was there before him.
“His lungs are shot. Someone suck out the blood—”
“Me! [Vacuum Sphere]!”
Falene knocked both aside. Seborn choked as blood rushed out of his lungs, funneling up into a swirling vortex in the air. Pisces grabbed for a healing potion. Bevussa snared it and poured it down Seborn’s throat. He choked.
“Get him upright—”
“Dead gods, his wounds!”
“Someone help Moore!”
Lyonette shouted. Pisces turned. He saw the half-Giant swaying. Then his eyes went to Moore’s side. He saw entrails spilling out of a cut in his side. Pisces swore. There was no blood coming from the wound. Moore was—he had to be—
“Body. Need a body. She needs a body.”
Moore gasped at the others. He looked around. Two voices seemed to come from his mouth. Both were his voice, but one was—different. A different inflection. Pisces froze. His eyes went to Moore’s side as his mind connected the dots. Surely not—
“Moore, you’re dying. The blood—”
“Stopped. I stopped it. It’s fine. She needs a body.”
The half-Giant looked around. He sagged to the ground. Pisces stared at him.
“A body? Where would we find a host for—”
“Basement. It’s the basement.”
He turned. Erin staggered to her feet. Her partially fixed teeth moved around her bloody mouth. She looked at the others.
“Raskghar in the basement. Get one. Hurry.”
For a moment no one moved, then Yvlon got up.
“Ylawes.”
They ran to the trapdoor. Moore was sitting on the ground, surrounded by other Gold-rank adventurers. They tried to pack his insides back into his body before applying the healing potion. All the while, the second voice whispered to them, telling them what was wrong. Moore’s eyes were rolling back in his head.
“Here!”
Yvlon came out of the basement, dragging a huge body behind her. Pisces’ heart jumped as he saw a Raskghar’s head and Ceria swore. But Moore lurched over to it. He bent, exposing his open side towards the body.
“Don’t look. Don’t look!”
At first the others didn’t know what he meant. Pisces did, and he watched in horror and fascination as something slithered out of Moore’s open wound. The half-Giant groaned and passed out, but the orange, semi-liquid…thing flowed towards the Raskghar’s body.
Yvlon and Ylawes backed up as it crawled down the creature’s mouth. The other adventurers watched in horror. The Raskghar began to jerk, and then a voice began to speak from its mouth, though the gaping muzzle never so much as twitched.
“You didn’t see. Didn’t see it.”
The voice was confused. Female. It didn’t sound like a voice that came from lips. The Raskghar kept twitching as the thing—the Selphid began invading its nervous system. The adventurers looked at each other.
“What didn’t we see?”
Ceria looked around in confusion. The voice—Jelaqua, whispered again.
“They’ll kill us for it. Didn’t happen. You didn’t see. Please.”
Bevussa looked around. The Garuda understood, and she spoke decisively.
“We saw nothing. No one will tell anything.”
Pisces nodded. The others began to understand, at least in part. Jelaqua was talking about how she’d entered Moore’s body. To invade a living host, willing or not, was the height of Selphid sin.
The Selphid had almost gained control of the Raskghar’s body. It began sitting up, raising its arms, blinking, as if going through a test. It was unnatural to see. But for all the precision, it seemed like the controller was—damaged. How could she not be? She kept whispering, forgetting to use the Raskghar’s vocal chords and lungs.
“I didn’t break the rule. I didn’t—”
“What happened? Are the Goblins still there?”
“What about Headscratcher?”
Halrac and Erin pressed Jelaqua. The Raskghar’s head turned and stared blankly at them.
“Garen. It was Garen. His tribe. Others alive.”
“Garen?”
The name evoked confusion in some of the other adventurers. Pisces felt his heart skip a beat. Dawil, his face burned, sat up from his cot.
“That was their old teammate, wasn’t it? I heard about a Goblin Chieftain that no adventuring team had managed to bring down. But he was supposed to be in the High Passes.”
Jelaqua didn’t respond. Halrac looked at the body, then at Seborn and Moore. He stared at the door.
“What in the name of the Five Families happened?”
Erin shook her head. She looked back at the Halfseekers. They were all breathing, but just. She stared at the door, closed again.
“I don’t know. But I think—I think something happened with the Redfangs. I mean, Headscratcher and the others. And Garen. They swore to kill him.”
“By the looks of it, he killed them.”
Revi commented softly. A strangled laugh rose from the Raskghar. All of the adventurers jerked as Jelaqua finally spoke with the Raskghar’s growling voice,
“He couldn’t do it.”
“Do what?”
Erin bent down towards her. Jelaqua looked up at her. She laughed again, weakly. Hysterically.
“He couldn’t kill us. He tried, but he didn’t. Who beheads a Selphid?”
She laughed, and then tears began seeping from the Raskghar’s eyes. Not water; the Raskghar’s body was dead. But a thin, yellow substance, like a mucus. Erin drew back. Jelaqua kept laughing, a weird giggling sound like a hyena’s laugh.
She was laughing and crying in the Raskghar’s body. It was a strange, unnatural sight and sound. But the sobs that quickly usurped the laughter and the tears were all too familiar.
The adventurers sat and stood in silence. Erin looked around. She was bloody, battered, and the others were hurt as well. She ran her tongue over her broken teeth and winced. She shook her head. For once, no witty quotes came to mind. She just sat down and put her head in her hands.
“I need a drink.”
—-
The Redfangs stood outside the cave. Four thousand of them and twenty thousand Cave Goblins. They looked at the five swollen and bruised Hobgoblins among them. They had splints and were keeping still, most of them. Even the best healing potions didn’t go so far.
Garen Redfang was gone. And with his absence, a void had opened up in the tribe. After all, no one Goblin could equal Garen Redfang.
And that was the problem. It had been a problem even when Rags was there, and Reiss. But the Redfangs had realized there was a solution.
No one could replace him. That was a fact. But five? Headscratcher, Shorthilt, Badarrow, Numbtongue, and Rabbiteater sat together. And the Redfangs looked at them. Headscratcher spoke slowly, around a swollen mouth.
“We are Redfangs. We were, and are. And will be. Garen is gone, but he was not us. We were, are, us.”
There was nothing else to say. The Redfangs sat there, as night fell. Wondering what they would be tomorrow.
—-
So night fell. The Redfangs and Cave Goblins sat, talking, debating. Erin Solstice and the adventurers lay in their inn, not understanding all of what had gone on. And Garen Redfang rode away, haunted by regret, words echoing in his mind. Those were their concerns.
The issues of a small Human city just north of Liscor was more immediate. Esthelm, the city that had fallen and then reclaimed its honor, was in a state of high alert. They’d reported the Redfang tribe riding past their walls. Now they locked their gates, and put everyone they could fit on their walls. They sent a [Message] spell to all the cities, a dire warning.
The Goblin Lord’s army was coming. They were within range of Esthelm’s walls. The news sparked alarm through all the cities, who had expected the Goblin Lord to arrive days later.
Only, it wasn’t the Goblin Lord’s army. They were close behind, but this band of Goblins had outrun them. It was an army large enough to fool Esthelm, but it was not Reiss’ Goblins.
Instead, it was a tribe. Redscar, Poisonbite, and Noears led the broken, bloody Flooded Waters tribe south, running ahead of death, despairing. Their Chieftain was missing. Alive, but lost to them. In her absence, they ran south, past Esthelm, continually on the move, fleeing the traitorous Goblin Lord who was slowly following behind them with the Humans.
They were despairing, hurt, betrayed. Most were half-dead from running all day and all night, but they dared not stop lest the Humans on horseback caught up. In their desperation they’d outpaced even horses, not stopping to sleep or rest or eat. It felt like the end of all things, and all the Goblins could do was keep moving, one step after another, late into the night until they collapsed of exhaustion and woke, only to feel the same fear again. They ran and ran, without purpose or hope.
On the eleventh day, they reached Liscor.
* * *
5.59
She had to get ready. Erin Solstice woke up on the eleventh day with that thought echoing in her mind. She didn’t know how she knew, or why, but she knew she had to get ready. They were coming. Whoever they were. So Erin opened her eyes, half-sat up—
And decided she could use a few more minutes of sleep.
—-
“Morning, Lyonette.”
By the time Erin got up for the second time, it was mid-morning, uncharacteristically late. The [Innkeeper] pulled herself upright in time to see Lyonette carefully pulling out a plate of pre-made pasta covered with bolognese out of a cupboard. Since that was completely natural, Erin ignored it at once and focused on the young woman. Lyonette jumped, and then turned guiltily.
“Morning, Erin. Sorry, did I wake you?”
“No. I was getting up.”
Erin yawned and stretched. She felt awful. Tired, lethargic, and sore. As if she’d spent a day lifting rocks and then having said rocks dropped on her back. She wondered why—usually she was able to get up no matter the early hour. Her [Lesser Endurance] Skill meant that she could keep ticking on less sleep. But not today. Erin remembered the events of last night and unconsciously ran her tongue across her teeth. She frowned as her tongue encountered nothing but smooth enamel.
“How’re the teeth?”
Lyonette put the room-temperature pasta next to the stove’s lit fire to warm it up. Erin shrugged and her belly rumbled.
“Good. They feel different. I think so, but then again it could be in my mind. They feel like they should be different, you know?”
“I’d imagine so. Pisces used bear teeth, didn’t he?”
“Yup.”
“Do they taste or seem…?”
Erin shrugged.
“Not bearish to me. But I keep feeling like they should be. I’m just amazed he fixed them, really.”
She ran her tongue over the caps Pisces had made to fix three of her partially broken teeth and winced. Her tongue was sore from doing that a hundred plus times. But the teeth were good.
“He should be a dentist.”
“A what?”
“Someone who fixes teeth.”
“Ah.”
Erin rummaged around in her nest that occupied one side of the kitchen. She saw Lyonette taking some utensils out of a drawer and opened a cupboard by her side. It contained Erin’s clothes. The [Princess] kept her back turned as Erin quickly changed clothes under her blankets. Too late, Erin remembered she should have asked if anyone was working this morning.
“Is, uh, Ishkr—”
“Drassi’s here.”
“Oh. Good.”
Erin breathed a sigh of relief. Now that she had more than just a few employees, the kitchen was filled with at least one person more often than not. And there had been a few incidents. Erin began stuffing her bedding into another cupboard as Lyonette checked the pasta’s temperature. She shook her head and then looked at Erin.
“You should really stay in a room, you know. There are some rooms available, even if the Hobgoblins come back. And Mrsha and I could share the room if you wanted to. There’s plenty of space. Mrsha does steal your blankets, though.”
“I should. I know.”
Erin made a face. She’d had the same conversation with Lyonette. It was just that—she sighed as she hunted around for her toothbrush. Which cupboard was that? Oh, right. It was the drawer. Erin pulled it out and grabbed the jar of toothpaste Octavia had made up.
“It’s just that I have so much to do, you know? And changing rooms is more work than I want to do.”
“Says the [Innkeeper] who just lost some of her teeth confronting a Goblin Chieftain and got twenty thousand Cave Goblins to run off.”
Erin grimaced as she applied some toothpaste to her toothbrush. It was a very astringent substance that Octavia sold, but it did make Erin’s teeth feel clean.
“They were supposed to go south. I have no idea what happened. Or if they’re coming back.”
Lyonette glanced out of the kitchen and Erin knew she was looking towards the magic door. Her face wasn’t apprehensive, but there was a note of tension in her voice.
“Do you think the Goblins would come here? I mean, if they’re still hostile.”
Erin paused.
“If they do, we’re running into Liscor. The door’s set up. But Numbtongue and the others—they’re not back. And Jelaqua said they did something. The old Chieftain ran off. Garen. If they come back—we’ll see.”
Lyonette nodded. The two waited while Erin scrubbed at her teeth, then decided she had to spit and wash her mouth. She got up as Lyonette took the plate of hot pasta away from the fire. The smell made Erin’s stomach grumble. But…pasta? She pointed at the spaghetti, which had been seasoned with sauce, sliced sausage, and just a little bit of spicy peppers.
“Whof fhat for?”
She tried not to spit all over the plate. Lyonette stared at Erin’s mouth and the toothbrush sticking out.
“Dawil ordered it.”
“Fo? Fhe Filver Fwords fhare here?”
Lyonette opened her mouth and then gave up. Erin walked outside into the common room and thus began her day.
“Erin!”
A number of voices greeted Erin as she walked towards the door of her inn. The [Innkeeper] stopped and the people waiting for her saw her turn towards them. A bit of toothpaste was dribbling down her mouth. Despite the myriad and pressing issues that demanded her attention, all those present agreed that she should attend to business first. So Erin stumbled out of her inn and went to the outhouse.
There were three, now. And each one was set far enough apart so as not to carry smells or worse, sounds to the other stall. Unless someone was having a really bad day. That was an important design decision, which had required the outhouses to be moved when Erin had first discovered the issue. The third stall was huge, big enough to accommodate Moore. It was also the nicest, so Erin sat in that after knocking to make sure no one was inside.
“Toilet bowl, toilet bowl. This is…nicer than a toilet bowl, actually.”
Erin sat on the polished hardwood, having spat and washed out her mouth already. Her feet were a bit wet from the walk to the outhouse, but the grass had only been dewy, as opposed to rain-slicked and muddy. The rain had stopped. Now, the air was humid, muggy, and foggy. Erin liked it not one bit; nor did she like the way a lot of the hills had turned to mostly mud and water gathered in the valleys. But it still beat buckets of rain dumping from the sky.
That was why the outhouse had a roof. And it was better than a bathroom, at least in some senses. The wood was just as smooth as porcelain, but it didn’t get as chilly. As for the…other concerns, Erin did have a type of toilet paper at her disposal. The main issue was flushing, or lack of it.
If plumbing had been invented, it was too costly and too unknown in Liscor for Erin to obtain. So the outhouse was an outhouse, which meant that it accumulated rather than moved waste. Erin had originally solved the issue of acquisition by making Toren pour acid into the pit below the outhouse, handily vaporizing the problem. But since he was gone, she’d had to resort to other measures. She still used acid, though.
Octavia had a wonderful mixture that dissolved undesirable objects slowly. It was enough to keep the outhouses from needing to be emptied, and a lot of fresh-smelling herbs did the rest of the job. Erin looked at the bundle of herbs that Lyonette had placed just the other day. Not having to tend to the outhouse herself was another perk of being the boss.
Now, what did the evolving and dynamic nature of Erin’s restroom facilities have to do with today or recent events? Nothing. But Erin sat on the toilet for a good while. She had a feeling she was going to be busy if the faces that had been waiting for her were any indication. And she wanted to delay work as long as possible. She managed to hold out five minutes before she decided to go back. After all, she was mostly responsible and over half the people waiting on her were her friends.
