General Setting: History

It is a time of war, of a resurgence of things past; a time of instability and uncertainty.  This is not a “black and white” war, with clearly defined villains or heroes.  Each side has its fair share of villains, and each side has spawned just champions supporting its causes.

Eons ago, there was another such war, and it tore the world apart.  In those ancient times, powerful wizards ruled the battlefields.  They fought one another for supremacy, or to protect their kinsmen, or simply because they had been driven mad with unchecked power.  Entire nations burned beneath their conflict, and the race of orcs stepped forward, crawling out of the mountains and underground caverns where their race was born.  They had once been simple-minded, weak creatures like the goblins, but the uncontrolled magics tearing through the fabric of reality had changed them, made them stronger, smarter and, above all, war-like.  They rose up as one, and struck against the races of men, elves, hobs and dwarves, carving themselves a place in the very heart of the land.

Then came the Oath-Sworn.  This was a feared order of mages and warriors, jointly governed by elves, men and dwarves.  They vowed to stop the rampant, reckless abuse of magic, to restore the balance of natural order, and to end the bloodlust of the terrible orcs.  They were swift and true, and they destroyed most of the wizard warlords within the span of a single season.  But they were unable to thwart the orcs, for the orcs had also learned the ways of magic, and thought to use it solely as a weapon.

In the end, it was the orcs that destroyed themselves.  Their power grew far beyond their own abilities to wield and contain it, and their warlike nature turned inward upon itself.  War chiefs rose and declared themselves the rulers of all orc-kind, only to be taken down by other, stronger orcs.

The details of the end of the war are lost.  What is known is that the final blow happened deep within orc territory, in the very heart of the land.  There was a great burning, and the thick, ancient forests were turned to smoke and ash.  The gentle, rolling hills were rent into jagged, rocky wastelands, and the orcs fell silent.  That area became known as the Black Hills.

The dwarves were horrified by this.  They swore an oath to forever leave the surface world, which they thought had been utterly ruined by this terrible war.  They soon vanished from the surface, and were not seen again.

The elves retreated to their forests in the far east, where they turned their focus to restoring the balance of nature, and maintaining that order.

Men and hobs settled in the north, south and west, forming the three Great Nations (Norric in the north, Weyral in the west, and Arwei in the south).  Magic was all but forgotten to them, in part because of the workings of the Oath-Sworn.  Those who discovered magic independently were scrutinized by the elves, and their motives and actions carefully judged.  Those who passed the judgement of the elves and were considered stable and responsible were given permission to pursue their studies and were actively encouraged in their art.  Those who failed to meet the standards of the Oath-Sworn were stopped.

Eventually, the orcs rose up again from the wastelands known as the Black Hills, but they were somewhat changed.  They were still strong – much stronger than men – and were intelligent enough to survive the incredibly harsh, hostile conditions of their environment, but their bloodlust and fervor had quieted down.  They were still a warrior society, savage and brutal by human standards, but the ceaseless battle-rage had faded from their hearts.  The Black Hills returned to a natural, green state, and though it was nothing like its former glory, the orcs thrived there.

The Great Nations of Men took shape over thousands of years, defined by natural, geological boundaries, and this was generally a peaceful time.  Some conflicts arose from time to time, as they always do, but these were swiftly resolved.

After a time, the orc tribes began to grow and expand, and were forced to push beyond the borders of the Black Hills.  Some tribes relocated in the west, and the peaceful ones were permitted to establish new tribal ground within the nation of Weyral.  The nation of Norric, bordered on all sides by mountain ranges, refused to let orcs step foot on their lands and fiercely defended their borders, occasionally sending military campaigns into the Black Hills to crush the tribes on the fringes and keep them pushed back.  Arwei, which was a collection of soverign states nominally ruled by an emperor, did not allow tribes to establish lands in their nation, but did not discourage the immigration of displaced, tribeless orcs.

Occaionally, the ancient bloodlust would resurge in the orcs, and several tribes would unite under a single ruler to wage war with a neighboring land.  For the most part, these uprisings were short-lived and lasted only as long as the great warchief remained alive, quickly falling apart when he was dethroned or killed in battle.  One Great Warchief, Gudakh, stood taller than the rest, however; Gudakh was a wise and powerful general, who managed to briefly unite every tribe in the Black Hills.  His goal was not to wage war, but to expand orcish territory to accomodate his peoples’ growing numbers.  Unlike previous uprisings, his warriors were organized and disciplined.  He delegated power to his chiefs, gave the orcs a common goal and a means to achieve it, and gave all orcs a code to live by, which became known as the Axioms of Gudakh.  The Axioms set forth a rigid, hard code of honor, putting the tribe first above all other things.

Gudakh’s campaign was more successful than anyone would have imagined.  His armies pushed out of the Black Hills to the west and south, far past the borders of Weyral and Arwei.  His armies established themselves in the regions now called the Borderlands, and it is said that Gudakh is the only Great Warchief to ever die of old age, though this is probably false.  He is revered to this day by most orcs, and his teachings are followed religiously by some tribes.

The Oath-Sworn have, until recently, managed to keep the spread of magic tightly controlled, fearing that an uncontrolled spread would lead to another apocalypse like the one that happened millennia ago.  All non-elven wizards were closely monitored, forced to submit to regular reviews.  Those who were found unworthy were silenced – some killed outright, some taken to the elven homeland, Edann, and others entombed in the mountains where they could do no harm.

For thousands of years, this worked well.  However, a number of events transpired that changed the course of history.

Firstly, a powerful elven wizard, who operated independently of the Oath-Sworn and lived in the nation of Weyral, was killed in a bizarre conflict.  He had made friends with a dangerous man named Dereyn, unwittingly indebting himself to this person, and when that man’s personal and professional problems built to a head, they were both murdered by an ex-convict who had kidnapped and seduced Dereyn’s wife and turned her against him.  Some time after the wizard died, his lair was ransacked by a group of organized thieves.  The thieves studied his works and took everything, making many copies of his writings and selling them for outrageous sums to any that would pay.  They did this in the name of freedom, believing the elves and the Oath-Sworn to be tyrants who were bent on keeping all non-elves ignorant and powerless.  They truly believed their cause was jsut, and they found a great many people who supported these beliefs.

Elsewhere, the elves had been entombing people in the mountains.  What they did not know is that the dwarves had claimed the mountains as their home, and had carved an ever-expanding civilization out of the rock.  Some of the entombments happened to land inside the dwarven halls, and these rebel wizards soon found that the dwarves had vast stores of ancient, powerful knowledge.  The dwarven halls were an inescapable prison for some, a never-ending maze of corridors and passages and mine tunnels with no exit to the surface world.  Furthermore, the dwarves were now unaccustomed to alien visitors, having not seen a surface dweller for thousands of years, and they did not know how to deal with these strange, hasty people.

It is not known why the dwarves decided to eventually return to the surface.  What is known is that the dwarves did not feel that such a return was a betrayal of their ancient oath, and that when they did return, they came out in force.  The dwarves still remembered much of what was lost – the crafting of powerful magic artifacts, for example – and the power of their convictions made them nearly unstoppable.  They quickly overtook the nation of Norric, believing the rulers to be oathbreakers, and claimed that land as their own.

Many Norricians fled south and west from the mighty dwarven armies, but found themselves in hostile lands, as their rulers had declared hostility against the Oath-Sworn and a great war had ensued.

The dwarves sent diplomatic envoys to neighboring lands in an effort to restore peace and order, but the spread of magic had once again grown far too large.  Once again, the orcs had discovered magic, and the confusion of the Norrician war against the Oath-Sworn had proved to be fertile breeding grounds for orcish bloodlust.

To make matters worse, many of the rebels who had bought stolen lore had grown in power.  Some of them commanded cities in Weyral and Arwei, and declared themselves independent nations.  The Great Nations of Men shattered, and the entire continent once again found itself embroiled in a terrible war.

There are currently four factions:

1) the Oath-Sworn, led by the elves of Edann, the king of Weyral and the Emperor of Arwei.  Their goal is to bring down the power-mad warlocks and rebuild the Great Nations of Men, to re-establish peace, and to restore the balance of nature.  Some view their methods as needlessly harsh, but the elves are goverened by their pursuit of the greater good and natural order.

2) the Independents, rebels who believe the Oath-Sworn are oppressive tyrants.  These groups are only loosely affiliated according to the whims of the warlords who command them, and they are widely varied in ideology.

3) the Orc Nation, which is ruled by a Warband of great, powerful chiefs.  Some human settlements, particularly those in the borderlands, are affiliated with this group, some of them even by choice.  The orcs fight because there is fighting going on, though some will proclaim loftier ambitions.

4) the Dwarven Nation, led by Grand Steward Bengrd and the Guild of Smiths.  The dwarves believe that the Oath-Sworn have forgotten the meaning of their ancient oaths and no longer fight for order and justice.  They believe the Independents and the Orc Nation are agents of chaos and destruction and must be put down.  In short, they will not choose a side in this war, but will fight on all fronts to re-establish law and order.  Their ultimate goal is to restore lawfulness and peace to the continent, and then to return political power to the rightful rulers of men, elves and hobs.

The Chicken Thief 04

Present Day: Odd Jobs

It had been many long months now, and they finally found themselves in Weyral, the capital of the kingdom of Weyre.  This was the city where lived King Audmont the Third and his royal family.  The castle could be seen from miles away, a massive and awe-inspiring structure with tall conical peaks on its towers.  From the tops of the tallest towers, one could see the ocean off to the west, a brilliant blue streak on the horizon separated from the city by a few miles of coastal forest and well-traveled roads.  The city sat on the north side of a wide, fast-flowing river which emptied out into Rayle Bay, the busiest shipping port in the entire kingdom.  Weyral was built a good distance from the bay to avoid any attacks from the sea; ship-mounted weapons could not reach the city walls unless the ships attempted to sail up the dangerous, well-defended river, and to do that, the enemy would have to make their way through most of the Weyrean navy, which was based in Rayle Bay.

The city of Weyral was a splendorous affair, the largest any of the three had ever seen.  It was surrounded by tall, marble-faced, crenellated walls with towers at regular intervals and at each corner.  Long, triangular flags bearing the royal crest (a gold lion on a navy blue field) flew from the tops of the towers, streaming and flapping in the sea-scented breeze.  Inside the walls, the buildings were all very tall and narrow, and jammed together tightly as though some kind of giant had packed and stuffed them all inside the great fortified walls, and had wanted to get as many of them in there as possible.

The trio arrived at the east gate, Durok and Eorian leading their horses slowly and Wil walking between them.  They had been riding all night and were quite tired by the time they arrived in the city, but the sights, sounds and smells of the place livened them up some as they walked.  They had been wearing the same clothes for three days in a row now; Wil wore a relatively simple bright green suit with a lilac collar and a broad-brimmed lilac hat with a long, green ostrich feather, stuck inside the green band, which nearly trailed on the ground behind him.  He wore shiny purple shoes on his feet, darker in color than the lilac accents but the closest he had to a match, and completed the ensemble with a cape of green silk with a lilac velvet lining.  Eorian wore a medium-length coat of sky-blue silk over his dark blue and gray linen suit.  He wore a hat similar to Wil’s on his head, tipped at a rakish angle, without a feather and dark blue rather than lilac.  Durok wore simple, sturdy, dark cotton trousers and a dark wool jacket, with big heavy boots and no hat.  He was dressed nearly the same as everyone else in the market, but when he stood near Wil and Eorian, with their flash and flair, he looked decidedly out of place simply because he was so unremarkable.

Wil surveyed his new surroundings with his typical wide-eyed wonder.  Sometimes, the others were not sure if his near-constant enthusiasm and child-like sense of wonder was genuine or a very skilled performance.  Eorian suspected that it was genuine, that Wil was indeed quite readily struck with dazzle and awe, but he couldn’t help but marvel at how frequently such a mood took the little hob.  To Durok, it made no difference; if it was an act, it was no more of one than Durok’s steady, unblinking tough-guy act (a face which Durok wore at all times, even when he himself was awestruck and wide-eyed), and it was performed with enough skill to fool anyone.  If it was genuine, then Durok was glad to know that some people were yet capable of such enthusiasm over seemingly so little.

They had arrived early in the morning in the dying hours of autumn, but the city bustled and clamored as much as any other city any of them had ever visited during peak business hours.  Though the sun was still orangey-pink and sitting low in the eastern sky, all kinds of people were out and about; everyone from the obviously wealthy to the miserably poor, the merchants and the customers, the watchmen and the thieves.  Most of the reputable inns, taverns and public houses were just now opening their doors for the day’s business, and some of the less-reputable places were finally ushering out their last few drunken, stumbling patrons and closing up until later.  A few merchants, bundled up against the cool morning, were setting up their stalls in the open-air market just inside the gates, laying out their wares and hanging their placards.  The city watchmen, wearing tall, conical helms and navy tabards over their hardened-leather cuirasses, strolled around rather lazily, keeping their eyes out for any signs of trouble.  Well-dressed men and women hustled through the area, heading for their upscale shops further in towards the city’s center.  A few scruffy beggars reclined on the cobbled walks, lying on filthy blankets and blinking at the morning light with bleary, yellowed eyes.

The three newcomers pressed through this thin swarm, taking in all the sights and feeling a strange sense of hope.  This looked like a place where they could make some proper money for a change, with all manner of pubs where they could perform.  There was a little park just off to the south, with a handful of manicured trees and a lovely little gazebo, where they could put on a grand show with very little preparation needed.  Purses, pouches and pockets fairly sweated with coin, like ripe fruit covered in morning dew, ready to be harvested by willing, skilled fingers.

“This place is great, boys,” Wil said, staring up at the high buildings and really not watching where he was going.  “Good place to winter down, I bet.”

“I agree, Wil,” said Eorian, his gaze fixed on an attractive woman as she breezed past, leaving a faint trail of soft perfume in her wake.  “I could settle in here for quite a while.”

“It’s crowded,” grumbled Durok, who had never been entirely comfortable around large groups of people.  He scowled around at everything, bunching his meaty shoulders and keeping his fists tucked away under his cloak.

“Crowds mean money, Durok,” said Wil happily.  “Winter’s coming, and these fine folks will need positive, uplifting entertainment to warm their hearts during the coming cold.”

“And perhaps their beds,” remarked Eorian, spotting another very fine-looking young woman in a pink dress.  He tipped her a lascivious wink, and she blushed and turned her grin away from him with a toss of blonde curls.

“Father of hell,” Durok grumbled, shooting Eorian a glare.  “Take your brain out of your trousers and stick it under your hat where it belongs.”

“A place like this is bound to attract the hob families,” Wil said, grinning at Durok’s grumpiness.  “We’ll need to petition to set up a franchise here.  It won’t do to be stepping on any toes if we mean to stay here a while.”

“A franchise?” asked Eorian with a note of disappointment in his voice.  “That means we have to cut someone in on our business.  We lose money that way.”

“Nah,” said Wil, waving his hand dismissively.  “The man upstairs only gets a taste.  It’s different when we’re traveling through an area; the local Gaffers don’t want to bother with drifters like us.  Even if we stay a few days and make a couple of scores, it’s best not to bother the local boys because we can create more problems for them than we’re worth, financially speaking.  We just make a point not to hit any of their protected operations and we never have problems with them.  If, on the other hand, we intend to stay for an extended period — and I highly recommend it in this case — it is only proper to announce ourselves to the local Gaffers and petition for a temporary franchise.  They don’t get too sticky about the rules, they only take a small cut, and they keep our names out of the mouths of the city watch.  It’s just good business sense.”

“You hobs,” muttered Durok, shaking his head.

Wil paused a moment and really took in his surroundings.  This was a commercial district, and any hob family worth their salt would have interests here if nowhere else in the whole city.  Local businesses would negotiate contracts with a hob family for protection services above and beyond the scope of the local law enforcement; the city watch could catch and imprison a thief who had stolen from a store, but they couldn’t always restore the financial losses suffered by the victims.  Also, the city watch was bound by the laws of their human king, and hobs were not.  As such, the sight of a wandering city watchman tended to have less of a deterrent effect than the mark of hob protection on a storefront’s window display. 

Wil searched the storefronts for such marks, and found a number of them.  These marks were usually painted in the lower right corner of a main window, large enough to be plainly visible but not so large that they obscured the view.  In this market, there were three distinct crests: a stylized green diagonal arrow, pointing up and to the left, with the letter C top right corner; a small blue hand with the fingers splayed, above the letter R; and a stylized red fiddle with the letter A beside it.

“Hmm,” Wil mused.  “Decisions, decisions.  I don’t know any of these crests.  Which one do you reckon we oughtta go to first?”

“How about this one?” asked Eorian, pointing at an upscale ladies’ boutique.  It was marked with the green arrow.  He looked back at Wil with a broad grin on his face.  “I think I should like to peruse the merchandise here.  Or at least some of the customers.”

Wil grinned up at his friend and tipped him a wink.

“I’ll just bet you would,” he said.  “And I’m liking the green arrow over the other two.  But I think a public house or the like would perhaps be more appropriate for us.  And I really can’t imagine Durok in a shop like that.”

“Not in this bloody lifetime,” Durok muttered, sneering at the shop with rather comical contempt and perhaps a touch of uneasiness.

They searched around until they found a nearby public house with a green arrow painted on the front window, a homey little place called the Fullabeans Inn.  The cheeky name appealed to Wil immediately, and the décor inside was just as cozy and inviting as he had imagined it would be.

It was a fairly small common room with a big fireplace on the left-hand side.  The fireplace was surrounded by overstuffed chairs and small sofas, and had a number of stuffed animal heads hanging on the wall on either side like a little hunters’ lounge.  The tables were of dark, varnished wood, all of them round and many of them low enough for groups of hobs to dine at.  The bar at the back of the room was well-stocked with all manner of different bottles, and the appetizing scent of breakfast — eggs, bacon, sausages, fresh bread, griddlecakes, muffins — was nearly thick enough to eat.

The proprietor of the Fullabeans was a man who looked like a half-blood hob-human: shorter than an average human, taller than an average hob, but he could easily pass for either.  He had curly brown hair worn in the shaggy, loose hob style, but he also sported a wide moustache, which was more of a human thing.  He wore what could be considered the standard uniform of the urban bartender: white shirt with dark trousers and a matching vest.  He stood behind the bar at the back of the room, flipping a towel over his shoulder and beaming at the day’s first customers.

“Aren’t you a fine-dressed lot,” the man grinned.

“I thank you, sir,” said Wil, sweeping the hat from his head and bowing deeply with a fluid, showy motion.  “And you have a keen eye for fashion!”

“Entertainers, are ya?” asked the bartender, chuckling mildly.

“Indeed, sir, most observant of you, and kind of you to inquire,” Wil agreed.  He smiled broadly and began what Eorian jokingly referred to as Sales Pitch Number Fifteen. “My name is Bil Wheatly of Elmsbrook, and these are my associates, Misters Dentanius and Urdo, both from the borderlands.  Mister Dentanius and myself are, as you may have surmised, the talent, and Mister Urdo is our equipment manager.  We provide a variety of entertainments and amusements, but we specialize in songs of hearth and home, soothing melodies to ease the weary heart during the long, cold months of winter.”

“That so?” asked the bartender, still smiling.  “Well, my name is Festus Dinsby, the owner of the Fullabeans Inn.  I’m afraid I ain’t got the gift of the gab like how you got, there, Mister Wheatly.”

“I should think that you hold a fine conversation regardless, Mister Dinsby,” Wil said, bowing again.  He sauntered over to the bar and hopped up on one of the regular-sized stools, and the other two followed suit.  “I have a short series of questions for you, good sir, and I am sure that your answers, though brief, will be satisfying and edifying.”

“Go ahead an’ ask ‘em,” said Dinsby, chuckling softly.  Eorian always enjoyed it when Wil got into his sales pitches; the rapid patter of dialogue was always amusing and never failed to elicit at least a grin from the participants.

“My first question, Mister Dinsby, is in regards to your nightly entertainment roster.  Do you have a show for your fine patrons, and, if not, would you be open to the idea of a reasonably-priced attraction that is sure to fill the seats and encourage your cashflow?”

“Well, we used to have a fella,” said Dinsby, leaning over his elbow on the counter.  “He come in a couple nights a week an’ played a flute in exchange for a hot meal an’ a place to bed down for the night.  He ain’t been around in a long while, though.  Reckon we could use a house act, provided you guys are, as you say, reasonably-priced.”

“Oh yes, reasonable indeed, sir!” Wil exclaimed.  “For the meager sum of modest lodgings for three men and two horses, and one daily meal apiece, we will happily provide you with our invaluable services.  As an added bonus, our equipment manager, Mister Urdo, will be more than pleased to extend his services as a doorman, a task at which he is quite proficient.”

“Hrm,” Dinsby mused, stroking the ends of his moustache.  “Lodgings for three men… reckon I can swing that if ya don’t mind a single room with three beds.”

“Gentlemen?” asked Wil, turning to his cohorts with raised eyebrows.  “Is this agreeable?”

“Of course, Bil,” said Eorian, nodding to Festus and smiling warmly.

“I guess,” said Durok with a shrug and a scowl.

“Mister Dinsby, you have hired yourself a troupe,” said Wil, extending his hand over the bar.  He had to stand on his stool to reach, and he had to strain every last ounce of his meager supply of willpower when he saw that the hand with which Festus Dinsby shook his own was bedecked with a pair of half-decent rings.  It was a quick, firm shake, and Wil quickly withdrew his hand afterward.

“Good to have ya, lads,” Dinsby said.

“My second question, if I may, is perhaps a tad more… delicate,” said Wil, his voice slightly softer now.  “It is the nature of our profession, sir, that we often fall under the undue scrutiny of the local gendarmes.  I’m sure you understand; traveling entertainers — strangers, as it were — are often the first suspects when local cads and scoundrels cause trouble.  As such, it behooves us greatly to introduce ourselves to certain local businessmen, kindly gentlemen of short stature, who provide certain protective services to those in need.  I could not help but notice, as the three of us came in here, that your fine establishment is under their beneficent, watchful eye, and I should like to make the acquaintance of one of their associates.”

Dinsby nodded as Wil spoke, smiling knowingly.

“I hear ya,” he said.  “You want to talk to the Culroys.  I can introduce you to the Godgaffer himself, if ya like.  Wayn Culroy is a cousin of mine, on my mother’s side.”

Wil tipped the man a conspiratorial wink.

“I thought I detected a hint of down-home in this place, Mister Dinsby,” he said.

Dinsby laughed at this, a friendly guffaw straight from the belly.

“You detected right, Mister Wheatly,” he said.  “I hope you got a couple of jigs in your repertory.”

“Indeed I do!” said Wil.  “It took me forever to teach Dentanius here how to step-dance, but by now he can do it as though he were three feet shorter!”

“Excellent!” said Dinsby, laughing again.  “I can’t wait to see it.”

“My third question,” Wil said after a beat, “and perhaps the most important yet: what is your breakfast special?”

The meal was as delicious and filling as only hob cooking could be, and the three of them wolfed it down.  Dinsby refused to take their silvers for it, saying he would throw this one meal in as a down-payment for the show tonight provided they played “Old Stagger-Man” as part of their set.  Wil promptly agreed — he knew no fewer than five different versions of that particular song.

After breakfast, Dinsby left his cook in charge of the place while he introduced “Mister Wheatly” and the boys to his cousin, Wayn Culroy.  The Godgaffer lived only a few blocks away, above a shop called “Cozy Nostrums” which sold a variety of tonics, tinctures, cooking oils and other potions imported from the south-west Black Hills.

The Godgaffer had a very sophisticated, urban air about him.  He dressed in scaled-down human fashion, with shiny leather shoes and a black tailored suit.  His dark curls were slicked back with perfumed oil, and he wore a neatly-trimmed beard on his chin.  His manners were all city: somewhat impersonal and very professional.  He was quite different from Festus Dinsby, who still carried that down-home warmth despite his big city clothes.

Even his office was citified.  It was all dark stained oak and leather upholstery, very classy and expensive.  He had a large, dark desk on one side of the room, with two big sofas facing it.  Presently, Wayn Culroy was seated behind the desk, Wil and Eorian occupied one sofa, and Durok towered behind them, too large to fit in any of the hob-sized furniture.

“So you boys are looking for a franchise,” Culroy said, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands together over his belly.

“Yes, sir,” said Wil, the showman gone from his voice.  “A three-man operation.  We have a good show for the pub which will attract some business and keep the wrong eyes off our other pursuits.”

“Alright,” said Culroy, leaning forward.  “What’s the other pursuits?”

“Dentanius is a card player,” said Wil, motioning to Eorian.  “He can fix pretty much any game, make some good money.  Urdo is an inside man, but we don’t know the city well enough for that just yet.  Maybe in a couple months.”

“Can never have too many good gamblers,” said Culroy, smiling faintly.  “Burglars have a lot of competition in Weyral.  There’s been a lot coming in from the east over the past few years, and all the juicy places are locked up tight.  Especially since the Salryn people moved in.”

“The Salryn people?” asked Eorian.  “Who are they?”

“Humans, mostly,” Culroy sneered.  “From the east.  A real tight bunch of grapes, they are; somethin’ like a family, they all dress in the same dark clothes and they don’t much talk to anyone.  They got a taste of our business a while back, during the troubles in Amear-on-the-River.  I understand they worked for that guy there, the one that got killed in the duke’s country estate.  From what I understand, the Salryns have been around for a long time, some kinda cult thing.  We can’t get a guy inside because they’re all humans… and elves.”

“Elves?” asked Wil and Eorian simultaneously.  Culroy stared evenly at Eorian and nodded.

“They got a handful of the pointy-ears workin’ for them,” Culroy said.  “Look, lads, if you want to work for me, I’ll grant you a franchise, but I have conditions which are non-negotiable.  First, my take is ten points.  That comes off your pub earnings as well as any other work you do in my city.  Second, you work only for the Culroy family, and not for the Argles or the Doils.  Third, and most important, stay the hell away from the Salryns.  I ain’t gonna say no more about ‘em except that they’re dangerous and we don’t want any kind of bad blood between the Culroys and the Salryns.  Just forget about ‘em altogether.  Understood?”

It was understood by both Eorian and Durok (and, indeed, by most people who had ever gotten to really know Wil Magee) that the best way to convince Wil to do something was to tell him to stay away from it, and that the best way to start him thinking about a thing was to tell him to forget about it.  Furthermore, they understood that as soon as Wayn Culroy had warned them away from this dangerous group that it would very soon become one of their top priorities to investigate it further.  Both Eorian and Durok had to stifle an inward moan of dismay as soon as Culroy uttered the words.

“Understood, Godgaffer,” Wil said.  “We accept your conditions.”

Wil and Wayn Culroy shook hands, sealing the deal.  Culroy gave them the name of his liaison who would pick up the family’s percentage at the end of every week, and the meeting was over.  The trio was escorted out of the house and sent on their merry way.

They had not gone more than half a block before Wil finally lost control of his bubbling excitement and snatched the other two down a narrow alleyway.

“The Selryns!” he hissed, his face eager and sweaty and excited.  “A dark and silent family!  The rooster is here!”

“Wil,” said Eorian patiently.  “I thought we had given up on that idea months ago.  There is no rooster that lays golden eggs.”

“That damned Oracle was as big a liar as you are, Wil,” Durok grumbled.

“No, listen!” Wil rasped, a rather desperate look on his face.  “We just haven’t had any good leads since Bixtry.  This has all of the elements of the Oracle’s prophecy: ‘a far-off place,’ she said, and Weyral is about as far as we can go!  Winter is just around the corner, and there will be the Winter Festival, which corresponds to the ‘time of feasting!’  It’s not something that happens at dinnertime, like I thought before.  ‘A dark and silent family’ is probably these Selryns, who dress in dark clothes and nobody knows hardly anything about them!”

“Was there a ‘dark and silent family’ in Bixtry, Wil?” asked Eorian, more out of curiosity than anything else.

“Well,” Wil said, his expression losing some of the excitement.  “The guy I lifted that rooster from… he had a pretty good tan, and his wife had dark hair.  Dark-ish.  And they didn’t say much.  But this is different!  Tell me you can’t feel the difference in the air!”

“I feel the cold,” Durok growled.  “And I feel annoyed.”

“Wil, please consider this very carefully before you go jumping to one of your mad conclusions again,” Eorian said softly.  “I know that there is no stopping you now, but I ask, please… please try to be cautious this time.  Think this out.  We stand to make a decent living here, and every time you get stuck on this idea of the magical rooster…”

“I know, I know,” said Wil, almost peevishly.  “So far, it has only led to trouble.  But this time is different, Eorian!  As soon as Culroy said the words, I knew.  Without question, I knew.  The rooster is here.  We’re finally going to find it, and I will finally have my answers.”

There was something about his tone of voice, a firmness and a finality, that neither Eorian nor Durok could question.  Not for the first time, Eorian wondered if perhaps Wil was using one of his tricks on them, a subtle weave of magic that eased doubt and made the speaker’s words seem more convincing.  And once again, he dismissed the idea; as devious as the little hob could be, he was also incredibly loyal to his friends.

“Alright, Wil,” Eorian said quietly after a moment’s reflection.  Durok sighed and threw his hands up in the air in resignation.

“Very well,” the orc-blood said.  “But mark my words: this is going to lead to serious trouble.”

He spoke from experience.  Wil was the most gifted thief that Durok had ever met, and a frighteningly-skillful performer, but he had one fatal weakness.  For whatever reason, he could just never manage to steal a chicken without getting caught.