“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.
“To meet me. To see who I am, and decide if she wanted me to stay.” Thane looked at his hand. “So many times, she asked me to come out, begged me for the truth. And I never trusted her with it. I never let her decide about me, because I was scared she’d… she’d… well, you know.”
“To be fair, I’d say she reacted about as poorly as you feared,” said Poldo. His eyes turned to the shrubs, where the Wood Gnomes were constructing a sort of long house from rat pelts and snake bones.
“I’d say I gave her reason to. The first time I let her see me, I was drenched in blood and mauling a corpse. Would she have screamed if I revealed myself in my garden? If I answered when she called me, would she still have drawn the bow? If I had let her see me, if I had trusted her to choose, if I had let go of my fear…” The Troll shook his head. “If I had done things differently, I think she would have as well. But I never gave her a chance.”
Poldo put a hand on the thick fur of Thane’s arm. “Perhaps you should tell her that.”
The Troll’s face froze, and Poldo could see a flash of fear behind his crimson eyes. “She… she does not need me, not the way her party did when I found her. And I… I am not ready.”
“Perhaps in time,” said the Scribkin.
The Troll smiled down at the Gnome. “Perhaps.” He leaned back and took a deep breath of the mountain air, as cool and crisp as a burbling spring. “Fate brought us together once. It may do so again. Until then, she’s made a new career for herself. She’s living a good life. She doesn’t need me to… well, she just doesn’t need me.”
“What do you need, though?” asked Poldo.
Thane took some time to think about it. “I have a home here, and friends. I have a job, and neighbors, and a whole city to explore. And apparently, I still have more to learn about myself.”
“All good things,” said Poldo.
