The next morning as the roosters began to crow, Elias awoke with a fresh start.
The bloodied rags from the night before, now scrubbed clean, and lay neatly folded beside his bedstand. As Elías crawled out of bed, he stuffed them into a whiffer basket and set off to work, his mind still tangled with the thoughts of the scroll.
The chill morning air nipped at his skin as always, before he entered the inn's broiler room.
Waiting there for him, was Jonas, Darris, and Lallia, lounging near the hearth, their laughter echoing in the dimly lit space where he was confined to work..
Jonas smirked when he saw Elias w walk in holding the wicker. "Oh My God!;
Lallia.. Look who actually did the laundry."
He snatched the basket, holding it up for the others to see. "And look, he even pressed them too, like a good little servant boy?"
Darris chuckled. "Hey guys.., We should make him do all our laundry from now on. Might teach him some proper respect."
Lallia leaned closer, her eyes glinting with cruelty. "..And you enjoyed it, didn't you, ya prevert!."
She paused for a minute letting the sting of her words sink in before continuing to say "Ohh, Poor Little Elías…, Always so eager to please those around him. *Hahaha!*"
Elías, though hearing their words, said nothing and continued focusing instead on his tasks at hand, **stocking the boiler**. The heat of their mockery couldn't burn him, at least not as bad as he would himself when he would stick his hand willingly into the fire to distract himself from the daily pains around him.
Later that day, as Elías was leaving work, a commotion near the entrance caught his attention. A group of travelers;
Five guards clad in weathered armor, and two merchants wrapped in foreign silks, arrived at the inn. It was the first time in Twelve Years that outsiders had come to Eddervosté. Intrigued, Elias did something a little out of the ordinary.
He took what little coin he had left and bought a large bottle of whiskey, for He knew the inn's unwritten rule:
NO ONE was kicked out until they'd finished their drink..
It would give him a few hours to linger,
..If he could manage to drink the whole thing, to sit and listen to the **Travelers Tales**.
His father would be furious, but he didn't care. *"F*ck It!.. I'll just bring him home whatever's left,* he thought. *That'll shut him up, at least for a little while."*
He found a corner seat in the bar and sat down, the bottle heavy in his hand as he pulled on the string to cut the wax, before popping the quark and taking his first swig as he watched the travelers settle into their seats.
In no time at all, their distant voices began to fill the room, weaving tales of distant lands and treacherous journeys.
As they spoke, Elías found himself with a spare piece of parchment paper he managed to grab on his way over to his table, accompanied by the charcoal ink pen he always kept capped, and tucked away in the inner weaves of his robes, and began to scribe their conversations.
{[ Tavern-Tales of far off Travels:
**Guard 1: Garron, the Grizzled Dwarf Veteran**
Garron, his beard flecked with gray, leaned forward, eyes glinting as he shouted above all the others. "YEAH, That's a good one… But you wouldn't believe how troubling the deserts of Val'Hzahar are. ..Endless sands, waves of heat rising like ghosts in the night. I tell ya, we saw a caravan swallowed whole by a sandstorm that day… but at least the cattle survived!"
One of the merchants, , a woman draped in crimson robes, named Arlina, nodded. "Ei.. They say those sands can sing, calling foolish travelers to an early demise."
**Guard 2: Mathos, the Young Halfling Idealist**
Mathos, barely looking to be more than a boy, slammed down his ale before chiming in, eyes wide with wonder. "You got a point there… But that Oases, aye Garron! You remember the night we found that hidden spring?, I swear, it was like a paradise in the middle of that hellscape!"
"Sure…, A *Paradise* that almost got us killed, just so YOU could go swimming." muttered Lorrik the Half-drow, another guard, who was nursing on his drink.
"The water was guarded by a frilled serpent, big enough to swallow a horse.
… actually I music think it did end up swallowing one of our horses', Didn't It, *Hahaha*!"
**Arlina: The Silver-haired Merchant**
Arlina, placed both of her hands on the table before leaning forward and smiling knowingly.
"You think that's dangerous? In the jungles of Xennitha, we traded Silks and Rubies to the Sylvanor for our protection..
But their forests are alive, and have a will of their own! We saw trees that moved like beasts, with roots snaking out fat and wide, just to drag unsuspecting men to an early grave."
Her companion, Baren, a stocky man in a blue cloak, with a voice that boomed like a thundercloud, grunted. "Yeah… I Definitely prefer the open road. Fewer... surprises that way."
**Guard 3: Lorrik, the Barbarian Skeptic**
Lorrik, an average sized man that seemed way too sinewy for his size, scoffed in response. "Better the open road than *The land mist* We almost didn't make it here alive thanks to those damn howlers!"
Elías's ears perked up as the mention of Mist and Monsters brought a chill to his spine. *"Maybe the elders' rumors are true after all."* He thought to himself, yet he stayed quiet and took a large gulp off his bottle, straining to stay longer and hear more.
**The Journey Through the Land of Mist**
Garron's voice lowered. "The Land of Mist… Gods above, I'd rather fight a hundred sand serpents than walk that path again. We lost two men. Just... gone. The fog swallowed them whole!"
Baren nodded correspondingly;
"Agreed, the ground here shifts underfoot, paths vanish in an instant, an dos' bloody
*Rivers*, seemingly spawning out of nowhere, an den dryn' up again…
It's enough to drive a man insane I tell you.. If it weren't for Arlina's *Lucky Map*, we'd still be wandering out there for another day or so I'd imagine."
Mathos shivered at the thought.
"And those sounds. Voices, howling, and *whispers*... calling to us."
He paused for a while, The color In his eyes turning stark white in that moment.
"I Didn't want to say anything earlier but..
I could have sworn I heard my mother's voice, clear as day…
…And She's been dead for five years."
Arlina's eyes softened like silk, and her voice turned stale. "The mist, it tests you my Friends'.. Plays on your mind, feeding off your distant memories; But it guards Eddervosté, and its *Secrets* well."
Elías tightened his grip on the piece of parchment and his pen.
*"Eddervosté's secrets!; What do they mean by that?"* he thought to himself before taking another swig off his bottle.
Baren shook his head disapprovingly, questioning the *reason* for their Journey
Baren leaned back, eyes distant.
"All THIS... for three Hogshead of Wine, we must be going mad!"
Garron, his clad armor shaking as he leaned back in his seat, grinned.
"Not just any wine my boy.. THESE are Eddervosté's Vintages!;
They are worth at least twice, if not thrice their weight in gold among the high court advisors. It's said to have... *Special Properties* if mixed with the proper herbs."
Arlina's gaze sharpened as she laid her head down for a second.
"Definitely more than wine.. These barrels hold just as many secrets as they do drink."
Their laughter faded, leaving a silence thick with unspoken truths.
Elias's heart raced. He knew he'd heard more than he should. But every word pulled him deeper into a web he couldn't yet see. ]}
As night time came around, and the adventures where about to pay their tab, one of the town drunks staggered over to Arlina, accusing her of being a gypsy and demanding a free fortune.
Even though she was obviously annoyed,
She obliged,and pulled a small crimson bag from the inner pocket of her robes.
Elías though drunk, watched intently as she poured a handful of assorted bones onto the counter, and he damn near choked on the last of his bottle when he saw it:
*A Bird's Skull* gleaming pale under the flickering lantern light, with a black beak.
*"Is that.., of a crow?!"* he wondered, the scroll's words now *Echoing* in the back of his mind, almost as if it had its own voice.
By the time the fortune was told, the drunk grew angry, slamming his hands down on the table, demanding his money back befor calling her a fraud snd storming out the building. The woman slowly gathered her bones, unbothered, and moved to leave with the rest of the travelers once her tab was paid.
As they rounded the corner to the residential side of the inn, Elías approached her, his heart pounding in his chest, for he had never spoken to a real traveler before.
"Excuse me," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "Umm, The Bones... what are they from?"
She studied him for a moment, then answered. "You mean my sack of bones?
Why there from Aadeer, a bear, a rabbit, a crow, and a giant lizard from lands far away.
Why do you ask young man, are you interested in the ancient art of scrying?"
Elías's excitement surged as She confirmed his suspicions. "well, kinda but that's not why I asked,. I wanted to know;
Could I... buy one of those crow bones off you?"
She laughed, her voice a rich sound that cut through the night air. "Wait…, You're serious aren't you?!"
She considered for a moment, eyeballing his frail posture up and down before coming to a conclusion.
"Very well..! Bring me a bottle of that expensive whiskey you were drinking, full to the brim, and I'll give you a crow bone in return."
Without hesitation, Elias turned and sprinted back into the inn, and burst through the door, startling his boss, who frowned at his arrival.
"What are you doing back here, you lose something?"
"Gondwin!, I need another bottle, right now!" Elias blurted as he slammed his hands down on the counter.
His boss shook his head. "Ei…You don' have enough coin boy... At least, Not fer two more days." squinting his eye hintingly.
Desperation flared in Elias's chest.
"Then Take my pay for the rest of the week and make it Two bottles. Please!"
The innkeeper's eyes narrowed, knowing a bit about Elías's *living conditions*, then he shrugged his shoulders and said,
"Fine. It's your loss." ..as he handed over the bottles, knowing they had just cost Elías two free days of work this week.
Elias tucked one into his robes and carried the other out, his hands trembling. He found the fortune teller where he'd left her, waiting with a knowing smile.
He handed her the bottle. She reached into her bag, pulled out a bone, and placed it in his hand. "A humerus," she said, the smile lingering. "..Because You managed to humor me, after all."
Elias, full of joy, clutched the bone tightly in his hands, feeling every gram of its weight,
..Of its *Significance*. Another piece of his puzzle had fallen right into his hands.