The world was spinning.
"I think I might've been poisoned," Stump croaked into a pillow.
"By your own doing, at that," said Reema. She was standing beside his bed and pulled the sheets off his aching body. "Some warm water with salt and skybloom will do ya well."
She moved to the window and threw open the shutters. A cool breeze carried a whiff of the Brightwater. Stump turned away from the light and squeezed his eyes shut, but the clink of coins drew them open again.
He looked back over at the bedside table and saw Reema pull her hand away, leaving twelve copper pieces glittering in the orange shaft of sunset. "What's that?"
"Your earnings, after what you owe for food and board, since you insist on paying that,” she said, and began dusting the various nooks around the room. "Jailburn sold out within a couple hours, but everyone stayed long after that. Poor Jin had to haul up Brightwater Brew and Amber Glow and then they ended up selling, too. It was all Muckbrew the rest of the night. Jin's on his way to market now to order some more casks. Please do get up, though. We've got this room requested for the night."
Stump sat up and rubbed his eyes, unable to sleep through the swishing of her duster. "Really?"
She nodded while she worked. "All three rooms booked, in fact. And then again tomorrow night." She turned to him, beaming. "Haven't had this sort of interest since pa ran the place."
Downstairs was a battlefield after a slaughter. Flagons sat askew in puddles of frothy beer, chairs were overturned, tables rearranged, and the scent of Jailburn wafted up through the soaked floorboards.
Morg sat at a table, looking even worse than Stump. "Ye creak one bloody step and I'll vomit a lung," he warned, head buried in his hands.
Stump carefully navigated down and righted a chair across from the hunched dwarf. He slid six coppers beneath Morg's beard. "Your earnings," he said.
Morg plucked one haphazardly between his fingers and glanced up at Stump, blinking against the light. A laugh burst out of his throat. "That was quite the night, eh? They'll be singin' songs about The Nobodies for days to come."
Stump brightened. "You think so?"
"Ye heard 'em shoutin' yer name. Saw ye chattin' with Ugg, too. Good man to know. He'll spread yer name if he likes ye."
"And, uh…" Stump began, his mind struggling between barely functional and buzzing with ideas. "My fame? It'll go up, right? At least in Grimsgate?"
Morg stroked his beard. Crumbs fell out. "Aye. It'll take a couple days for word to spread o' last night, though. Give it…" he groaned and massaged his temples. "If I have to think too hard about 'splaining much I'm like to spit up half a barrel o' Jailburn. Can't move a damned inch without the floor tradin' places with the ceilin'."
Stump slid off the chair and moved beside Morg. He placed a hand on his arm. "Warm water with salt and skybloom will help."
The dwarf sighed knowingly. "Aye, the Reema special."
She came down some time later and whipped up a couple mugs of her homemade cure. After the first few gulps Stump was already starting to feel better.
"We made a good team yesterday," he said.
"Hm?" Morg almost sounded annoyed at the disturbance. He gripped his cup with both hands and took tentative sips.
"At Dusty Taps, and then the party. We did good, you and me."
The dwarf nodded sullenly. "It all turned out better'n I thought."
Stump weighed his next words carefully, remembering how eager Morg was to divert away from the subject of his own sellsword history, even while drunk.
"I've got some mercenary spots to fill," Stump mused, glancing lazily at Reema buzzing around the inn, as if to draw attention away from the offer he was building towards.
"Yeh…?" Morg's tone was heavy with suspicion.
"I think I should hire someone bigger than me."
"Shouldn't be hard."
"And stronger. To balance it out."
Morg narrowed his eyes. "That so?"
"And since we're going to the Spits—"
The dwarf groaned. "Agreed to that, didn't I?"
"—It might be best to go under one name. As the Nobodies."
Morg's mouth disappeared into his moustache when he pursed his lips in thought. After some time he downed Reema's brew in one long swig, then set the mug aside.
"I will take ye," he said. "But as a friend. Not a fellow comp'nyman. How does that sound?"
Stump's ears lowered, but he managed a sleepy smile. "That sounds good, Morg."
The table tilted around the dwarf's belly as he stood and fastened his belt. "Y'ready?" he said.
Stump blinked at him. "What, now?"
The dwarf nodded to the window, where damp sheets of grey mist hung. "Got to catch the haze before it rolls back across the bay. We'll need it on approach to Seabrace."
 

 
Fog rolled over the hills of Grimsgate like clouds too heavy to fly, snuffing fungal lanterns and spilling grey down its winding streets.Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.
They took a detour on their way to the Tackled Hack at Stump's urging and followed the many narrow roads to Dusty Taps. Despite the gloom the inn glowed with hints of a recent celebration. Tankards lay on the street. Scarves, gloves, and cloaks hung from the shutters or in puddles of mud, and out of the windows flowed hushed chatter.
The door opened and two staggered out. They croaked their goodbyes and blinked blearily at the morning mist before tottering past Stump and Morg. The smell of Jailburn clung to their coats.
Inside the devastation was similar to the Knight Inn. Chairs were flipped, beer pooled on tables, several beastfolk nursed their cups, and Boragu drew a rag across the counter, her eyes glued to an open book.
"I believe we have guests, my dear," said Borag from a corner table. He sat with a dour looking catfolk and looked to be in the middle of telling a story unprompted.
Boragu glanced up with a scowl, and brightened on recognizing their patrons. "Stump," she said, closing the book. "Morg," she added, with a little less warmth. "What brings you back?"
Stump waddled over and scaled a stool. "We were on our way to Seabrace, and I thought we should come see how things went with the Jailburn," he said.
She frowned. "Seabrace? As in, the Spits? As in, stealing from Dagg wasn't enough for you?"
"We're going for Wasptongue. Well, I am. Morg's helping me get there."
Her frown vanished with a scoff. "That mean old goblin?"
"I tried to warn him," Morg grumbled his way into the conversation. "But he's got his mind set."
"I'm hoping she can teach me more about Lumenurgy," Stump went on.
Boragu shrugged. "Then I hope so too, after your help yesterday."
"Sounds like yer night went well?" Morg inquired.
She rapped her knuckle against the Jailburn keg and grinned. "Whole thing sold out quick. Got enough glimmer for a new roof, new door, paint… Maybe even enough for some lessons with Bonesapper," she said.
Stump's ears straightened. "Your father's going to let you?"
"For a level or two."
"It's goin' to take a level or two just to unsheathe it," Morg teased.
Annoyance flashed across Boragu's face. Her shoulders tensed, and for a moment it looked like she was about to volley a retort. Instead she sighed and gave in to a knowing chuckle.
"You want a drink before you go?" she said.
Morg's eyes lit up. "Thought you'd never ask."
"All we've got now is Muckbrew."
"Then Muckbrew's what I'm havin'. Two o' those."
"No thank you," Stump piped up. "I'll have water."
The dwarf was affronted. "Water? We'll be on the waves soon enough, ye can have yer fill then. Besides, yer not a true man o' the Downs 'til you've had yer first pint o' muck."
Stump glanced to Boragu, but her subtle nod confirmed Morg's claim. "Well… what is it?" he asked.
"The rule of Muckbrew is it's free if you don't know, a silver if you do," she said with a sly smile.
"Besides," Morg added, leaning in with his fungal breath. "It's never the same thing twice."
They watched Stump take his first sip and laughed as a grimace started in his eyes and shuddered its way through his body. It punched hard with a sour heat, then opened to a body of moldy leather, and finished with notes of regret and floor dust. A strangely herbal film clung to his tongue long after he banished the mug across the counter, determined never to look on the foul concoction again.
Morg sipped happily.
He paced himself long enough for her and Stump to trade stories of their night, and for Borag to wander over and regale them with all the beastfolk he met, and the many voices he heard during their party. After the dwarf's final swig and a burp that carried the stench of dying flora, they bid their farewells and headed for the door.
"Before you're off," said Borag, hobbling up to Stump. "Allow me to impart your presence to memory."
He reached out, swatting air above Stump's head.
"I'm down here," said the goblin.
"Oh." Borag felt for his ear, then his head and cheek. "You're shorter than I expected."
"That's why they call me Stump," he said, embarrassed.
Borag's laugh was as dusty as the books around him. "Blindness brings its own way of seeing. People tell me the inn is a sinking mess, an ugly thing to look at. Perhaps they're right. But I see what I hear, what I smell, what I feel. The cracks may be unsightly, but the songs the wind carries through them are wonderful. And the morning after a storm, the walls soaked with rainwater… it brings to Grimsgate the scent of spring in the Rimewood."
The orc's hand moved down to Stump's, and a familiar warmth passed between them. Borag bent as far as his spine would allow and said, "Despite what others may say of you, I see in my own imaginings a man of great stature."
With a squeeze of the hand and a final hum of magical warmth, the old orc straightened, turned, and shuffled ponderously back to his seat. "Bright Queen shine on you in those haunted isles," he said. "You'll need it."
Stump and Morg were down the street and around the corner when they were stopped a second time. Boragu came jogging out of the mist, a book in her hand, and doubled over when she caught up with them.
She held it out to Stump between gasps for air. "I forgot… I wanted to give you this…"
"The Greenskin Knight," said Stump, reading the battered cover. The profile of a figure in piecemeal armour was barely discernible from the old leather around it, but when he squinted he could make out the skyward sword, and the porkling steed. "What's it about?"
"A goblin knight," she said, straightening. "Or an orc. Or maybe a human who painted himself green. All three are characters, but it doesn't tell you which one is the knight. Or maybe it does, but I haven't finished it yet. He fights windmills that he thinks are goliaths, and visits inns he imagines to be great temples. Anyway, it's yours."
He savoured the weight of it, careful not to disturb its thin wrapping of dust, and imagined the world bound in its pages. He could almost smell the woodsmoke of the fires he would read beside in his cave and wished he could curl up for an hour or two and delve into its slice of imagination and read its words to Yeza.
"I can't," he said, holding it out to her. "Not yet. I might ruin it if I take it with me to the Spits."
"Right. Ghosts, and all that."
Stump shivered. "I was thinking water, but that too."
Her chuckle revealed her tusks, but she swiftly hid them again, embarrassed. "Well… for when you get back, then."
He smiled and offered his hand. "When I get back."
She seemed surprised by the gesture, but accepted. "I'll put it aside for you," she promised, then turned and jogged back through the fog, gone as quickly as she arrived.
 

 
Beyond Dusty Taps, beyond Penny Square and the Cantankerous Tankard, the stones of the old world still loomed large around them.
"Are we still in Grimsgate?" said Stump.
They'd walked for what felt like an hour, over low hills and through shallow valleys, all the while in a bubble of mist so thick with grey it was hard to believe the world outside it existed at all.
"Aye," said Morg.
Wind buffeted them over the next rise they crested. Mats of lichen and broken stone lined their path, and ahead, down the slope, the rest of Grimsgate exhaled its foggy gloom, unmasking rolling and buckled streets dotted with giant mushroom trees and chromatic bubbles of light, like nightflies swirling in mist. Beyond the veil the lights dimmed, hinting at ever more streets and markets and hills and dips. And somewhere far at the end of it Stump imagined the quiet rush of the sea breaking against the shore.
There's so much of it, he realized, breathlessly. He'd come to a stop without meaning to.
Morg stepped next to him and registered his slacked jaw with a sharp chuckle. "Yer lookin' at Brinetown, over by the sea where we're goin'. Hogg's Hollow's right there. Ye'd see its tenements if not for the fog. Guttershine flanks the Blightwater with its waterways and mudflats, just over that hill. Each o' them's as big as Grimsgate. Yeh… Aubany's quite a sight too, I 'magine, beyond the walls. But ye catch this side o' the river just right and it stirs the chest, don't it?"
The dwarf took an appreciative intake of breath before he grumbled and stalked off. "Fog's rollin' back across the bay, 'n we gotta stay on its tail."
Stump followed, but his mind was elsewhere.
Nobody watches the Downs, Jin had said.
From the Knight Inn's modest interior the prospect of filling that role, of claiming that hill, had felt difficult, to be sure, but it was doable. He'd already experienced the chaotic tumult and labyrinthine alleys on his first visit with the oxfolk, but it wasn't until descending that vantage with Morg that he'd begun to grasp the true scale of the place.
The Nobodies had a lot of ground to cover.
And Stump had much work to do.
Tenet of Lumensa Fulfilled - Virtue +1 (7/6)