Creeva’s World 2.0

This is a short story I started but never finished

Another Time
By
Brent M. Gueth

The air was crisp and fevered, a very high tem­per­a­ture for a late fall day. Off in the dis­tance a female was con­jur­ing magic out of the dust for her own amuse­ment. She was dressed in a dark pur­ple robe with the sym­bol of the local church cen­tered within the area cov­er­ing the small of her back. Her long black hair streamed over her shoul­ders, barely hid­ing the pale skin on her neck and the helf-elven ears on her head. She turns and sees me watch­ing her. I freeze.

“Do you enjoy watch­ing maid­ens when they assume that they are alone,” she speaks in a tone that froze my blood so cold that I was afraid an ici­cle would pen­e­trate my heart.

“No…uh..I..,” I stammered.

“Out with it you stu­pid fool, I do not have time for incom­pe­tence from beings that are intel­lec­tu­ally beneath me stam­mer­ing about. Do you wish to say some­thing in your defense?” She says as she glares into my soul. I feel a wet­ness com­ing from the crotch of my trousers, for a sec­ond I thought the lady had cut me, until the pun­gent smell of urine hits my nos­trils. Before I could get myself in any more trou­ble I run away.

I run for what seems to be an eter­nity but I finally make it back to the town I was stay­ing in, beau­ti­ful and safe Mizraith. I take a look at the prize, the whole rea­son I am here, a huge 20-pound dia­mond that sits upon the steeple of the Nogod tem­ple. If I man­age to swipe that gem I will be set for life. I might even man­age to lever­age the cash and become the rich­est man in the coun­try. Then the king will ask to bor­row money from me; of course I would lend it to him, with inter­est of course. The sun is begin­ning to set

and my tastes buds are yearn­ing for a taste of ale. I head to the Cramped Pigeon in and set myself upon a bar stool prepar­ing for a long night.

“What ale’s ya,”asks the bar­tender, a gruff fig­ure of a dwarf

“Ale’s ya…I love that one Crom…every time I love that. What ale’s ya” says a drunken halfling down the bar.

“Never mind Creve,” Crom says. “What can I get for you tonight Mikel?”

“Crom my dear man, I think I am in love. Today in the for­est I saw the most beau­ti­ful crea­ture wan­der­ing. She was also one of the rud­est char­ac­ters I have met in my travels.”

“Do you know if this lass of yours is a local?”

“I would assume so, she had the mark of the Nogod tem­ple upon her robe, tell me Crom—Are the priest­esses of Nogod allowed to wed?”

“Mikel, my lucky bas­tard of a guest, they are allowed to marry, frolic, and have chil­dren. There is actu­ally pretty lit­tle out­lawed by the reli­gion. So tell me what did the vision that you would want to warm your bed look like. Quite a few of the priest­esses come in here time to time. Per­haps I could arrange an intro­duc­tion for you, the cost will only be nam­ing your first born after me,” he says with a jovial smile.

“She was a half-elf, with black hair wear­ing a pur­ple robe with eyes the color of….”

“The color of the green­est grass,” Crom says cut­ting me off with a scared look cross­ing into his eyes. “or the color of the truest gob­lin blood.”

“What­ever do you mean?”

“I mean that you should give up this girl and leave town imme­di­ately,” he states as the color starts to drain from his face. “For your own good for­get the girl and put her into your past.”

“Why, who is this woman”

“Her name is Bethany Stron­strom, High Priest­ess of Nogod, and Pro­tec­tor of Mizraith.”

“Bethany Stron­strom, as in the town ruler of this city?”

“One and the same.”

“Why should I be afraid, is she this cruel and unjust tyrant who kills men who so much as look in her direction?”

“Not quite, actu­ally she is one of the least strict rulers in the land, she trav­els quite often and leaves a priest by the name of Tomas in charge, a friendly sort of bloke.”

“Then why should I just walk away?”

“First off, any man that has tried to court has always mys­te­ri­ously dis­ap­peared. Sec­ondly, she is devoted to her beliefs and if you do not think like her she believes you are beneath her. She has no friends within the city walls save one, a dwarf by the name of Quinn. I have even heard that good nature fel­low say a few harsh words about her. The only other peo­ple close to her live in Thorn­wood Keep, which is about a two week ride away. For your own safety and san­ity you should just for­get about her.”

“My dear men, the Gods have stricken my heart with a dis­ease that has no cure. I swear by it now I will leave this town with my beauty,” refer­ring to Bethany and the diamond.

“I hope you have led a ful­fill­ing life Mikel.”

The dawn creeps into my room like an unwanted vis­i­tor. I try to cover my head with a thin sheet, but the light pierces through my flimsy shield. As I open my eyes and can see dia­mond from here. I pur­posely chose this room just for that pur­pose, so every morn­ing in which I have been lax the night before, I would be tor­tured by the site of the dia­mond shin­ing down in all of its glory. I close the win­dow shut­ters and go back to sleep.
It’s been about two hours since my bat­tle with dawn and I am finally prepar­ing myself to go out and embrace the day. I head down­stairs to the tav­ern and order two eggs over easy from the wait­ress. Then I sit back and rest my eyes, which are still in their early morn­ing drowsy state. Some­thing clat­ters down on the table in front of me as I notice that I have drowsed off. Barely open­ing my eyes I look down to where the noise had come from, my eggs, here are my beau­ti­ful eggs. It might just be a good morn­ing after all.

After fin­ish­ing my won­der­ful break­fast, I drop my gold piece down and head out and around the town. It is time start ask­ing around town about this “Quinn” fel­low that Bethany is friends with. I notice a dwar­ven shop keeper sell­ing can­dles scented with fra­grant oils and decided that he was as good a place as any to start.

“Excuse me, Merchant”

“Yes, young sir?”

“I’m look­ing for a dwarf by the name of Quinn, friend of Bethany Stronstrom.”

“Quinn, is quite easy to find, head down to the Guard Mas­ter Sta­tion, ask to speak to the City’s Chief Con­sta­ble of Mizraith and they’ll fix you right up……now that will be 5 gold pieces.”

“Five gold pieces for what?”

“Well by see­ing the way you jaw dropped, it’ll be 5 gold pieces to keep my mouth shut. Trust me, I know the look of dis­hon­esty any­where and I know your around here to only cause some kind of trou­ble, I’m just offer­ing to help you cover your own tracks.”

“Hardly, go about your busi­ness merchant”

“Ok, but when you see Quinn, tell him that his god­son Sarif Maxim said hi.”

I walk qui­etly away five gold pieces poorer than I was ten min­utes ago with noth­ing but a cou­ple copper’s worth of can­dles to show for it. Damn cheat­ing dwarf, I’ll have my revenge on him yet. God­fa­ther Quinn….that knowl­edge might be worth the 5 gold pieces itself.