Though the attempt to conclusively prove Nove’s fifth principle in a laboratory failed spectacularly, most great minds on Arth accepted it as true. Ortson Weaver certainly found it credible as he sweated under the collective glare of the assembled nobles and merchants. It took a small eternity for the last grains of sand in his hourglass to finally fall.
“Thank you for your patience, ladies and gentlemen,” the guildmaster announced. “The, ah, notice period for the announcement of the king’s messenger sprite from the dungeon of Wynspar is over. As you can see, this is the same sprite that visited the throne room earlier today, and many witnesses can attest that nobody has been privy to the information within.”
The hush only deepened in response. Ortson could practically hear their fingers quivering above their sprite stones.
Weaver nodded to a noctomancer standing behind the throne. The wizard had lank hair, a quill in his front pocket, and eyes filled with contempt for anyone who didn’t know sorcery. He lifted the cloche and wove a glowing ring of air and shadow with an expert gesture of his long fingers. The magic drifted down over the sprite, so that she was standing at the center of a temporary magic circle.
“I have—!” The sprite’s voice boomed like thunder and ended in an ethereal screech.
“Sorry,” mumbled the wizard. He wove a few strands of air to modify his magic circle.
“I have a message for Weaver Ortson!” the sprite said, and now its voice was appropriately amplified for the entire audience to hear.
“Has the message been played before?” Weaver shouted. He was one of those unfortunate people who conflates volume with decorum.
“The message has not been relayed!” chimed the sprite.
“Excellent,” said Weaver. “Well then, play the message, and be ready to play it again.”
The sprite immediately popped up and into motion. “Hello? Hello? Has the message started? Yes, right? Ha! This is Johan, Champion of Tandos. We’ve reached—what is that?”
The sprite’s voice changed a bit. “What are you—arghhh!”
The crowd let out an audible gasp as the second speaker cut off in a scream.
“What is that?” shrieked the sprite. “No, no, no—aaaiiee! Bettel!—Aaaaarg!” The sprite paused to let out a hideous, bestial roar, unlike any creature Ortson had ever heard. It was followed by another death scream, and then a grim gurgling. Another voice chimed in, sounding more like Johan’s, but ragged and rasping. “Tell Marja… tell Marja I love her! In this life or the next, we will be together—aaarrgh!”
Ortson’s next three heartbeats lasted an eternity in the stunned silence of the room.
“Shall I play your message again?” asked the sprite.
The throne room erupted. Marja screamed and fainted. Financiers hollered orders into their sprite stones. Green and red sprites cascaded up toward the windows, bathing the world in otherworldly light. Bannermen began shouting for order. They may as well have gone down to the docks and yelled at the Tarapin to stop flowing.
Only Weaver Ortson remained motionless. Questions raced through his mind as he stared at the messenger sprite waiting patiently on the table. “Shall I play your message again?” it repeated.
“I’d rather eat a boiled basilisk than listen to that farce one more time!” snarled Duine Poldo as he stormed up the streets of Mistkeep. “I’d be sick to my stomach either way, but at least with the basilisk I’d be spared all of the dismal theatrics!”
“You was starting to look a little ill for a while there,” Thane observed.
“‘Oh, we have standards to keep. Oh, we require more paperwork for NPCs of a certain size!’” mimicked Poldo. “I’ve never seen such principled slum lords in my life! It’s like the lawyer-monks all over again. These landlords, the lawyers—they’re all papering over their bigotry with a thin layer of documents and formalities.”
“This time was a little different,” said Thane, peering at a plaque on a gate.
“How so?”
“I could understand what these landlords were saying,” chuckled Thane.
The Scribkin scowled as they crossed a cobblestone intersection. “You seem awfully cheerful, given the sort of treatment you’ve endured today.”
“This? This isn’t anything. Usually when people try to keep me at a distance there’s more screaming and running involved.” The Troll brandished a fanged grin as a Domovoy popped out of his fur and chittered something. “And the Domovoy get poisoned or people trying to stomp on them. We can handle a bit of extra paperwork.”
“Paperwork that would take months to procure. Paperwork they know you can’t easily get. Paperwork they wouldn’t ask for from a Human or a Dwarf,” huffed Poldo. The street’s gentle slope was becoming more pronounced as it sloped up toward the Highwalls. It might have afforded them an excellent view of the city had Mistkeep not been enshrouded by its famed, eponymous fog. “And then these gutter scargs use the missing forms to turn away Andarun giltin! For Mistkeep real estate, no less! They wouldn’t last five minutes in the upper tiers’ real estate market, let me say that!”
“But we did find a place.” Thane peered over the wall ahead of them. “This place, specifically.”
“Well, pardon me for not beaming with hope for Mankind’s future just because we found a landlord who’s more greedy than stupid,” said Poldo. He could still feel his mustache bristling at the memory of the realtors he’d met with over the past few days. “It’s probably a shack made from old crates.”
“I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.” Thane pushed open a small wooden gate set in a stone wall and ushered Poldo into a small, sloping yard bordered by the stone wall and some evergreen shrubs. A charming cedar cottage sat in one corner, with a lean-to roof extending off one side.
Thane admired the mossy slopes as Wood Gnomes streamed from his fur to fan out across the yard. “It’s nice,” he said.
“Very nice. One wonders why it was available to… oh, bones.” Poldo slapped his forehead.
“What?” asked the Troll.
“It’s got to be infested. Or maybe haunted,” said Poldo. “Nobody would let a place like this out for rent unless it’s got some sort of monster and they don’t want to pay the guild for an adventurer.”
With Novian punctuality, a sudden flurry of activity rattled the bushes nearest Thane. A squealing rat the size of a dog burst from the foliage, harried by the spears and blades of the Wood Gnomes in pursuit. It hopped and bucked around the yard before it crashed back into the hedge and expired with a final scream.
“And there you have it,” said Poldo. “It’s got monsters.”
“So do you,” said Thane with a grin. The Troll started toward the house. “Come on. It’s nothing we can’t handle.”
There were other creatures, of course; a single giant rat wasn’t enough to throw off a landlord. The Domovoy cleared several more of the massive rodents from the yard, and dispatched a flying snake in the upper eaves. Thane found a young yeti cowering in the root cellar. He carried the snarling creature by the scruff of its neck to the eastern gates and set it loose in the mountain cliffs outside the city walls. Poldo discovered a clan of pixies had taken up residence in his bedroom. He negotiated a deal wherein the pixies moved to the now-vacant attic in exchange for a truce with the Wood Gnomes and a ban on mischief.
Cobwebs lined the hallways. A thick layer of dust coated the scant furnishings. A skeleton lay crumpled in the closet, and the ghost in the kitchen wouldn’t stop wailing until they sent for an undertaker to bury the bones. Poldo and his team tackled each challenge, one by one, until the house was free of monsters and approaching cleanliness.
By the next afternoon, when the setting sun had burned much of the fog away, the cottage felt considerably more homey. The exhausted Scribkin and Troll sat side by side on the upper slope of the yard, looking out over Mistkeep. The skyline framed the majestic shape of the Star Tree growing from the center of the city, its leaves glimmering deep blue and a warm, orange glow emanating from the boughs within. Even with the dead of winter fast approaching, the tree’s magic kept the mountain’s ice and snow at bay.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” said Poldo.
“Hmm? What is?” Thane murmured.
Poldo saw that the Troll’s gaze had turned northward, across the Green Span. “What’s on your mind?” he asked gently.
“I just… I was thinking about her again.”
“I see.” The Gnome let his gaze drift back to the Star Tree, its dusk-colored leaves alight in the amber glow of the dwindling sun. “How so?”
The Troll’s sigh sounded like a geyser. “Do you remember when you said you never gave Mrs. Hrurk a chance? You didn’t listen to what she told you about the dragon?”
“I do,” said Poldo. “Thank the gods I had you to help me find my senses and listen to her. I might be bankrupt had Mrs. Hrurk not convinced me to divest myself of the Dragon of Wynspar’s hoard.” Poldo nodded to the northern horizon. “But what does that have to do with your Elf? And you?”
“I… I see the same problem in myself.” Thane’s great mouth worked as he turned a thought over in his mind. “I didn’t… I never gave her a chance.”
“A chance for what?” asked Poldo.
