I. Mead Delivery
Crow and I accepted Anda’s delivery tasks and loaded four heavy barrels onto the cart she supplied and with With Andra’s directions carefully memorized—and no small amount of confidence in Crow’s sense of direction—we set off toward the Limponn Inn, our first port of call.
As the cart rattled forward, Molag revealed itself to us in stark, unflinching detail. The devastation of the recent war was everywhere. Block after block bore the scars of violence: vacant lots strewn with rubble, abandoned homes sagging inward like broken teeth, and the smoldering ruins of a city torn apart by civil strife were sights repeated block by block.
And yet, Molag was not entirely given over to despair. As we turned a corner, signs of rebirth and renewal emerged. Laborers and masons worked tirelessly, their hammers ringing out in defiance of the city’s grim past. The fragile wattle-and-daub houses of old were being torn down, replaced by stone foundations, stout timbers, and cob walls that promised endurance. This was a new Molag, reshaped under the steady hand of Mayor Drixin, rising stubbornly from its own ashes.
The closer we came to the Limponn district, however, the more the tone shifted once again. Despairing townsfolk began to fill the streets—gaunt faces, hollow eyes, hands trembling as they reached toward us. They begged for alms, for food, for anything. The air grew tense, heavy with unspoken hunger and resentment. Then, just as suddenly as they had appeared, the streets emptied.
Crow spied him first, a lone archer on a rooftop, then another and then more rough looking bandits came out from behind buildings. Seven rough-looking bandits in total. Too many to fight, even on our best day. This would require words—carefully chosen ones.
“Mmm… what have we got ’ere then?” cackled a broad, thickset man as he swaggered down the center of the street toward us. “Name’s Captain Maddox,” he said proudly, patting his ample stomach. “And it just so happens I drank my last drop o’ mead this mornin’.”
He paused deliberately, letting the silence stretch as the bandits crept closer.
“And I need a refill.”
The group advanced another step. Maddox tilted his head, eyes flicking to the barrels. “I’m sure Andra wouldn’t mind sparin’ a couple o’ barrels, eh?” he cocked his head to one side expectantly.
I strode forward purposefully towards the lead bandit cognizant of the first rule of deception; display utter and utmost confidence when lying through your back teeth and aim high. I closed the distance between us until our boots nearly touched, then looked up a full three feet into his eyes.
“Captain Maddox,” I said gravely, “I regret to inform you that there is not one drop of mead remaining in these four barrels.”
Before disbelief could bloom, I pressed on. Mayor Drixin has requisitioned these barrels to be used to transport water to the poor children in the schoolhouse that are suffering under a cholera outbreak. Kindly step aside and stand your good men down as time is of the essence if the lives of these poor urchins are to be saved.”
At the mayor’s name, Maddox took a clear step backward. At the mention of a schoolhouse, his brow furrowed in confusion. I did not allow him time to think. “One more thing good captain. Not a word of this to anyone. If news of a cholera outbreak should escape, the whole town of Molag will be plunged into panicked hysteria.
Onwards Crow!”
Without awaiting a response, we hauled the cart forwards. Maddox and his gang watched us pass, eyes narrowed, suspicion written plainly on their faces—but they let us go.
II. The Limponn Inn
The Limponn Inn presently came into view, identifiable from the ragged assortment of low lifers slumped outside its rickety doorway. The sign hanging askew above the doorway portrayed a mass of half-naked, red bodied imps covered in oil writhing in agony or perhaps ecstasy; it was hard to be certain which.
Inside, a large male tiefling bartender loomed behind the counter. He eyed us with interest.
“Ah ha,” he rumbled, “a couple of freshies.”
We cautiously approached the bar and informed him of the mead delivery we had parked outside and our worry that it wouldn’t stay unclaimed for long. In response, three imps scurried out from behind the bar, chittering excitedly as they rushed outside to secure both cart and barrels.
He showed interest in the two extra barrels left on the carts, but we disappointed him that they were bound for the Molag Inn. “When you happen to the Molag Inn, say hello to my friend Saggy Sack.” the barkeep replied.
We were in the process of ordering a couple of meads when the barman suddenly leaned forward, his tone turning sharp.
“Don’t go downstairs, do not go into that corner and do not, whatever you do, touch ANYTHING!”
As we digested the gravity of his words, intrigued as to what kind of establishment we now found ourselves in, he slammed a couple of tankards of mead on the counter.
Crow, with a keen sense for a money-making opportunity, suggested we tap the barman for some gold. “Er hmm… good sire,” he piped up, “Andra mentioned a sum of 5 gold per barrel, to be collected on delivery.”
The tiefling wavered, but not for long, and presently returned and pressed 10 gold pieces into Crow’s hand. “Don’t think of spending that coin down there.” We followed his eyes to the staircase descending along the wall at the back of the room. “You’d more than likely see things that you’ll never be able to unsee, if you catch my drift.”
We did, although our curiosity thoroughly piqued, we grabbed our tankards and slowly walked towards the far side of the room under the disapproving gaze of the barkeep.
III. The Relay Once More
Near the top of the staircase were two side rooms set into the wall. A motionless figure stood just inside the room on the right, watching us.
Curious, Crow sidled up to the threshold and peered in. He returned to me with brows furrowed. “He looks familiar,” said Crow, “but I can’t place him.”
I brushed past him and stepped inside—and recognized the figure instantly. The Relay of Critwall. “Come in, come in the both of you and be seated.”
The air around him shimmered for a brief instant, and he fixed us with a long deeply uncomfortable stare before speaking. “Unsettling reports have reached me concerning the unprovoked slaying of imps at the meadery by a theatrical bard and a mercurial ranger.” A pause. “Brittany’s imps!!!” A long sigh. “Explain yourselves!”
Crow submited that we had indeed been provoked… by the very promise of gold on a town notice board! The Relay shifted uneasily. I shifted uneasily. Why had Crow not permitted I, Aelfric the bard, to articulate our predicament. I, Aelfric, whose silken tongue, renowned throughout the fair kingdom of Ulek, would undoubtedly have woven a tale so intricate and tangled that the Relay, in his bemusement, would have granted us free passage from this den of iniquity.
Unperturbed, Crow continued to detail the havoc the imps had been causing in the mead storage basement, that the rats had transformed into imps without provocation and pounced before we had laid a finger on them. I must profess his unsophisticated direct assertion of the facts seemed to satisfy the Relay, who conceded that since Brittany’s recent disappearance, the imps had been getting somewhat out of control. I allowed myself the comfort of knowing that exposure to my supreme literary mastery and powers of persuasion must be rubbing off on Crow!
“And the paladin Phlegan? Did she meet expectations?” Crow and I shared a knowing look. “She was of good cheer on the journey and pleasant company.” Crow remarked truthfully. “And her aptitude in combat?” probed the Relay.
Silence.
“Ermm…an intensive course in mace weaponry training to begin at the earliest opportunity available would be advised.” “Mmh…” muttered the Relay “…not entirely unexpected. Anything else?” “Just one more thing,” I suggested. “Perhaps she could mellow a bit on the righteous paladin stuff, you know, less rigidity in oath adherence perhaps.
I mean when we summoned the shadow man, he-who-shall-not-be-named, she seemed somewhat…” At mention of this name that is not a name, the air around the Relay began pulsing violently so that his hooded form appeared as if under deep water. Slowly, the oscillations lessened until the Relay’s calm demeanour returned.
“This shall not be spoken of again,” he warned.
IV. The Fiendish Feelers
It was then that we felt it—that subtle pressure in the air that precedes horror, the instinctive tightening in the gut that warns a soul when it has wandered too close to something it was never meant to witness.
As we backed away from the Relay’s chamber, our eyes were drawn inexorably downward to the long staircase we had been so clearly warned against. A splintered sign hung crookedly from a door at its base, the wood scarred by deep gouges and long, savage claw marks. Upon it, burned crudely into the grain, were the words: “The Fiendish Feelers.”
Crow, ever cursed by curiosity and courage in equal measure, began descending despite my hurried reminder of the barkeep’s warning. His steps slowed—but fate had already made its decision.
The door exploded outward.
From the darkness burst a gleeful imp, her horns vibrating with manic excitement, her laughter shrill and unrestrained. In her clawed hands she hauled a thick iron chain, straining against its weight. At the other end of that chain came the source of the screams.
A male imp, blood-soaked and shaking, was dragged bodily up the stairs. His wings were shredded beyond repair, ragged stumps slick with blood. His body glistened with oil and sweat, every inch of him trembling in agony. As he passed beneath the light, we saw the true cruelty of his restraint.
The barbed stinger of his own tail had been forcibly driven into the flesh between his shoulder blades, embedded deep into muscle and sinew. The chain was hooked to it—every tug a fresh violation, every movement an invitation to further torment.
He collapsed at the top of the stairs, eyes wild, mouth opening and closing as though trying to scream but no longer able to form sound. He reached toward us weakly, clawed fingers shaking, imploring us to intervene, to save him from what was coming.
The impress holding the chain smiled wider.
With a vicious yank, she pulled the chain taut. The stinger drove deeper. The male imp’s back arched violently, his scream tearing through the inn as his eyes rolled back, showing only whites. His entire body convulsed, pain wracking him beyond endurance.
She dragged him, inch by inch, toward the dark corner the barkeep had warned us away from. As they vanished into shadow, we glimpsed a sudden flare of flame—the threat unmistakable—as she forced his grease-slick body down onto the floor.
The screams did not stop.
They echoed—long, broken, and wet with suffering—until they blurred into something less like sound and more like an assault upon the soul. Crow stood rigid beside me. I felt my stomach twist, my breath grow shallow. We had faced necromancers, prison wagons, and psychic terror—but this was intimate cruelty, deliberate and savoring.
Neither of us spoke.
Neither of us moved.
When we finally turned away, it was not out of cowardice, but because nothing we could do would make it better, and everything we could do would make it worse.
That night, neither Crow nor I would forget the sound of that scream.
V. Greamish and the Basement
We had barely reached the daylight when our fragile illusion of safety shattered.
“Water, my arse!”
Captain Maddox’s voice rang out behind us like a curse made flesh. He stood atop our cart, leering down with triumph etched across his broad, ugly face.
“You two bullshitters are coming to meet Greamish.”
Before protest or deception could form, we were seized, shoved forward, and forced to march behind the cart through narrow streets and into a mud-choked side alley.
Unceremoniously, pushed along the alley, kicked through a doorway, and bundled down some stairs, we emerged into a cavernous basement. The grimy pale green paint on the walls was peeling, and layers of old paint were showing through. The dank air hit us as we entered the room and stank of rot, mold and stale sweat. Dim figures moved in the half-light, watching us with interest far too predatory to be mistaken for curiosity.
As we were rudely forced forwards towards a large table on the far wall, I caught a glimpse to the side of a wheeled iron cage; A short, stout figure crouched within, cloaked in shadow. I caught a glint of silver. Armor.
Then we reached the table.
Seated there, as though presiding over some grotesque court, was Greamish.
He was enormous. Pale. Bald. Bloated. Fat sagged from his face in rolls that slid down his neck and pooled atop his chest like melting wax. His flesh seemed barely contained by gravity, his body an obscene monument to excess.
Flanking this toadlike individual was a serious looking elven caster, gripping a staff topped with a massive blue crystal that pulsed softly in the dim cellar light, illuminating the room in cold flashes. On his left loomed an aged Orc, whose pallid green-blue skin mirrored the flaking viridescent peeling paint so closely that he appeared to have walked out of the walls themselves – save for his burning red eyes. They glared at us from beneath his nasal helmet and the short crossbow he was cradling was menacingly lowered to point directly at Crow and me.
We exchanged a glance.
This was very bad.
Greamish sat back and stretched his arms forwards on the table.
“This is what I know so far…” he looked sideways at Maddox, who shifted uneasily to the side. “… you tricked the Captain here, and he’s one of my smarter idiots!”
He leaned closer, “Who are you two working for?” I was tempted to play the Mayor Drixin card again but without knowing if Greamish had a relationship with the Mayor, that was too risky a card to play twice.
Before I had a chance to fabricate a lie, he answered himself. “We work for Brittany.”
“As did the three imps you murdered”
At that moment, the elven sorcerer shifted her staff, the crystal flared, and the cage we had passed earlier was briefly illuminated by the radiant light. It was just long enough for me to catch the eyes of a holy paladin betrayed by the glinting silver armor, and there was something familiar about those eyes.
Then it came to me…Phlegan!
I had to think fast, but Greamish was increasingly showing signs of impatience as his teeth started grinding, and his jowls started to wobble .
Crow spoke quickly, calmly, explaining contracts, gold, transforming rats, and regretful misunderstandings.
Greamish let slip that it was true that the imps had been goofing off since Brittany had disappeared, and I saw an opening.
“At this moment we are searching for a friend, a paladin named Phlegan.”
Greamish and his sidekicks glanced towards the caged prisoner and back at us.
“Primarily, however, we work for coin.”
“Ah ha,” replied Greamish, “Mercenaries then, a most noble profession indeed.”
His countenance seemed to soften, as if, given his blubbery constitution any further softening was even possible.
“And furthermore, just this last week did we find ourselves in the company of the voluptuous Brittany and know of her whereabouts.”
The whole room shifted as one. Greamish’s eyes widened, and the encircling crowd moved closer. Then Greamish reconsidered, “You lie! You take me for a fool like Maddox?”
“No sire I replied, and I shall prove it to you.”
I suspected an ascendant-in-waiting succubus such as Brittany, who dwells in the subterranean cultish worlds of the Horned Society would be unlikely to reveal herself to common folk, and so I set about describing her.
I gave details of her twin gossamer wings, the red rubies at the base of her curving red horns, the tattoo on her left shoulder, her drooping ear rings, her leather crimson vambraces, her suggestive flickering tail, her wide powerful hips, her strongly muscled curving torso that led seamlessly up to her firm leather clad breasts, her suggestive and sultry dark red eyes and sumptuous, pouting, inviting scarlet lips that seemed to say…
“Yesss…” gurgled Greamish in ecstasy as he opened his eyes and wiped away the drool that was dribbling down his cascading neck. “That’s our Brittany!”
“And,” I added, “She also has this look of extreme bored disinterest in anything and everything.”
“Ah yes,” sighed Greamish “that is also our Brittany.”
“So… where is she?” insisted Greamish.
I replied that that information would be forthcoming only upon the release of the paladin. We stared at each other for an uneasy silence and then the command was given to release the holy warrior, but not before Greamish had issued a word of warning.
“Beware that this one is strongly suspected of being in service to ‘the Connection.’ Don’t be fooled by the rational logic of numbers. Underneath it all lies a calculating, controlling mind from which there is no escape!”
I diverted my gaze from Greamish to the caged prisoner, whose barred door was at that moment being flung open. Strange, I thought, as Phlegan climbed out of the cage and idled towards us, her gait decidedly different from my recollection. As she passed into the crystal’s light, it became apparent that this was not Phlegan at all, but another dwarf paladin; a male and decidedly more hairy.
Crow was quick on his feet and flung his arms around the ‘other’ paladin and feigned joy so convincingly that I was suddenly unsure as to whether we had in fact met Phlegan once again. The new paladin was also quick thinking and embraced us both and hailed us, “Friends, we meet again!!”
“Where is BRITTANY?” bellowed the bandit leader.
“Hand our friend his weapon and I shall tell all.”
A scrawny gang member reluctantly emerged from the shadows dragging a huge two-handed maul along the ground. The paladin swung it up on his shoulder with ease and a wide grin.
I recounted our flight from the graveyard and our meeting with Brittany the prisoner, and our subsequent journey to Orcatraz. The Orc crossbowman stiffened at the mention of the infamous penitentiary and leaned in to whisper something in Greamish’s ear. The other gang members gathered around the large oaken table, and a whispered council was hastily convened as the three of us slipped back out of the basement unnoticed, up the stairs and into the deserted streets of Molag.
VI. Blood at the Molag Inn
We made for the Molag Inn, sans mead barrels but in urgent need of a stiff drink or three.
The Molag Inn was a blessing by comparison—warm, loud, and blessedly free of screaming. Behind the bar stood Saggy Sack, who greeted us with a puzzled scowl. “What the fuck were you out-of-towners doing in the Limponn?”
We assured him he did not want to know.
Over ale, Ender told us of his search for his sister, Phlegan, and we swore to help him. The second pitcher was half-drained when the door burst open.
Captain Maddox.
His face was twisted with rage, his scimitar already drawn.
“I’ll teach you for making me look like an idiot!” Three of his henchmen fanned out behind him.
The inn erupted into chaos.
I hurled faerie fire, the violet glow clinging to two of Maddox’s crew like a curse made visible. Crow moved instantly—fluid, silent, deadly. He ducked beneath a thrown dagger crackling with lightning, the blade grazing his shoulder as he surged forward and cut down one archer in a blur of steel.
Ender charged. The dwarf moved like a living battering ram. His massive maul swung in brutal arcs, each impact reverberating through bone and floor alike. Maddox struck out again and again, his scimitar flashing—but each blow was absorbed, deflected, or simply ignored as Ender pressed forward relentlessly, forcing him back step by step.
Seeing the writing on the wall, Maddox’s crew bolted, leaving the Captain alone against the three of us. Struck down by a swing to the midriff and abandoned by his underlings, he threw his scimitar to the side, raised his hands to his face and pleaded for mercy.
Saggy Sack gestured sharply from behind the bar—finish him.
We chose restraint and watched Maddox limp away, broken in body and spirit.
Crow examined the Lightning Strike dagger that he had acquired and satisfied with its’ workmanship, slipped it into his belt.
We settled back down at our table- bloodied, shaken, alive—and contemplated what came next.
As the inn house patrons that hadn’t fled reemerged from under tables and behind curtains, Saggy Sack brought us a third pitcher of ale on the house, tutting as he placed it down between us.
“You could have done the whole town a favour if you’d finished off that blowhard! Still, doubt I’ll see him round here too much after word gets out, so I’ll thank ye for that.”
We turned our thoughts to what came next. Tracking down Phlegan, escorting Mayor Drixin and battling wolves at Farlish’s ranch were all on the table, but I was more intrigued to learn more about our new brother in arms, Ender.
And as I watched Crow clean his blade with practiced ease, I realized how little I truly knew about the ranger who had become my companion.
Perhaps… one more pitcher would change that.
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