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After finally getting to bed Glenn tossed and turned. Part of it was worrying if they’d find the dwarf, and part of it was he’d decided to sleep in Stephi’s bed. Because she urged him to, retreating to his usual mattress and padded quilt under her bed might upset her. She’d curled up on a folded towel inside the creel basket. As best Glenn could tell she hadn’t stirred.
Everyone else, from the mutters and rolling over to get comfortable, weren’t sleeping well either. Except for Derek.
Glenn finally sat up and decided to go to the washroom. The small amount of light making its way through the open window from the nearby streetlamp was just enough for him to grab his shirt and pants, and sneak out. He was nowhere near as silent as Kirby. Nevertheless, gnomes were woodland beings and that helped—when he wasn’t wearing his heavy boots.
By the time Glenn finished, Kirby was standing in the hallway awaiting his turn. The Glade House kept several chamber pots in the tiny common room, along with pitchers of water and wash basins. It was a lot better than some of the other places they’d stayed in. The Ox Wagon Inn came to mind.
Glenn whispered to his friend, “I’m going to the vegetable market before they open and see if Pam might know of someone who could help us.”
“Coin-stealing dwarves probably don’t shop for potatoes and onions,” Kirby whispered back, then grinned. “But you never know.”
Glenn nodded once. He knew Kirby was heading to the tea shop to talk to the clerk, or counter person. Derek would say serving wench, even though it wasn’t a tavern. From what everyone said about the game’s dwarves, tea didn’t sound like their beverage of choice. But Patti saw and talked to a lot of people. It couldn’t prove any more fruitless than the party’s random search last night.
Pam, the potato and onion vendor, was sturdy from her labor. She also bore wrinkles and looseness of skin that age brings. She wore a linen blouse and long skirt that showed evidence of repeated mending. She protected her outfit with a faded yellow apron whose color matched that of her crinkly bonnet. It kept her long, graying hair out of the way.
One of Pam’s grandsons helped set up her large cart. It had two sections. One she filled with potatoes, and the other with onions. A grandson helped her each morning, led the donkey away, and returned when the market closed in the late afternoon.
Glenn wandered up after Pam’s grandson departed. The sun’s rays were just reaching over the roofs in Three Hills City. Some of the potatoes were beginning to show age, having been stored in dark cellars over the winter and through the spring. Most of her large yellow onions appeared and smelled freshly pulled from the ground.
Pam smiled broadly upon spotting Glenn examining her produce and dropping eight large potatoes and an equal number of onions into his canvas sack. “Mighty early for you, Jax. Are you going to stay and visit with me for a short stretch?”
Glenn frowned. “Actually, I can’t.” He cleared his throat. “Maybe there’s something you could do for me?” He verbally stumbled, realizing he should’ve planned out and practiced what he was going to say. “Actually, it’s to help my friend, Marigold.”
Pam’s eyes went wide before giving Glenn a knowing smile. “Your gorgeous elf friend. The one that hides her face.” She winked. “The one that’s only your friend?”
Glenn sighed. He’d told her at least a hundred times that he and Marigold were friends. He even tried to explain that elves and gnomes weren’t attracted to each other in that way. Pam never bought it. Maybe because it was only a half truth. He was attracted to Stephi. Who wouldn’t be? But she wasn’t attracted to him, a gnome. Who would be? Another gnome? One he wouldn’t be able to relate to?
The gnome healer sighed a second time and looked around. All of the other market vendors were still busy setting up, too busy to listen to a gnome. He decided to press on. “We’re looking for a dwarf who’s visiting the city. He took something from someone and we want to get it and give it back.”
Pam cocked her head and squinted an eye.
Not wanting to get specific, but not wanting to lie, Glenn said, “He took something made of gold.”
“Ahhh,” Pam said, giving a knowing nod. “Gold and dwarves. More than explains it. What color beard does this dwarf have?”
Glenn shrugged. “All we know is his name, but there aren’t very many dwarves in Three Hills City. Not many come here, and he’s new. Not one of the regulars you might see.”
She chuckled while rearranging her potatoes and onions. “We don’t see many dwarves, regular citizens or no, here in the market.”
“I pretty much figured that.” Glenn scratched his left sideburn. “You said you’ve been selling here your whole life. Started as a girl, helping your grandmother.”
Pam took a deep breath, looking around, possibly recalling the market and her grandmother from at least forty years ago. “That I have.” She frowned. “And there’s no granddaughter here, learning to take my place.”
Glenn knew how that fact ate at Pam’s heart. He was sorry he’d brought it up. Two of her five children were already dead. One to an accident while plowing, and the other, serving in the militia and shot dead. An arrow to the throat when the bastards from the Agrippa Empire had come raiding. And Pam had only one granddaughter. She helped her mother with the rug weaving.
“What’s this thieving dwarf’s name?”
Glenn looked around. In a low conversational tone he said, “Benxcob.”
Pam pursed her lips and walked around behind her cart. “I have a nephew who’s a guard on the North Wall. There’s a small fortified gate there. You know that nobody uses it without the duke’s permission. So my nephew doesn’t see a lot of folks.”
Pam brushed her hands down her apron. The action both cleaned her hands and straightened the garment. “He’s up high, though, and tasked to watch both inside the gate and out.”
Glenn smiled. “Any little bit will help.”
“Well, Jax, you’ve helped me enough, spending some mornings here by my cart. It’s the least I could do.” She leaned her forearms on her cart. “His name is Villgar and he has wavy brown hair. But you won’t see that because his captain makes the men wear their helmets, summer heat or no.
“You can spot him, sure enough.” The potato seller grinned and motioned with her finger along the front of her chin. “A scar right here. Got it from falling while fetching an axe for his father.
“He’ll be coming to the North Gard House by way of Kershaw Street. He stands on the wall noon till dusk, so catch him before he has to stand for the captain’s inspection, or whatever the soldiers called it.
“Tell him it was his Auntie Pam that sent ya.”
Glenn paid her five bronze coins for the onions and potatoes. It was more than they were worth, including a generous tip. He thanked her and hurried back to the Glade House, feeling proud that he’d actually accomplished something.
Glenn hauled the sack of food into the Glade House’s kitchen, minus one potato. He’d eaten it raw on the way back to the Glade House. Elise was the only person around, so he left the sack of produce with the maid and rushed upstairs.
Stephi wasn’t in their room. He’d seen Petie on the roof, so Stephi should be around. No way would she fly around the city in full daylight as a fairy. Maybe she was sitting still, Camouflaged? “Marigold, you here?”
The gnome healer got no answer.
A minute later, Stephi fluttered in through the window. She landed on her bed while Glenn was taking off his boots.
“Jax, you look wiped out.”
Instead of telling her about his tossing and turning the whole night, and being still weary from combing the city, he simply said what was obvious. “I am.”
“Take a nap.”
He shook his head, and glanced out the window. After all this time, Stephi seemed oblivious about how her abnormally high, 19.5 Appearance Score, affected him. “I have to head over to the North Wall in a couple hours.” He explained about Pam’s nephew.
Stephi clasped her hands, looking hopeful. Then she frowned. “I’m just hanging out on the roof with Petie.” When Glenn’s eyes widened, she reminded him, “If I sit still nobody can see me.”
He grunted acknowledgement. He was tired.
Stephi got to her feet and stood on the bed. She looked down at Glenn sitting on the floor. “Those people behind the Glade House, across the alley. They’re nasty.”
Glenn nodded. “Keri calls them swamp frogs. I think it’s equivalent to poor white trash.”
“If that’s true, swamp frogs give poor white trash a bad name.”
“I met, or saw two of them that live there. That night we got chased out of the Blue Bugle.”
“You mean when you let Rocky and Chili chew up my bra?”
“That wasn’t my fault,” Glenn protested. “You have two bras now.”
“I know, Jax. I was just teasing you.” She looked around and then down at herself. “Weird as it might sound for me to say, I hope I’ll fit into them again someday. Soon.”
Glenn’s mind was running slow. It led to a moment of silence. He decided to put the subject back on the neighbors. “Did you see the half-goblin, Roary, or his half-ogre wife, Buellean?”
“Maybe I saw him. There’s at least three half-goblins there. One of them dumped their chamber pot out the back door.”
Glenn shook his head and stifled a yawn. “That night I met Keri, she was yelling at them because they’d tossed one out and it got on the back of her building.”
“Last night was the first I came close to sleeping. I really closed my eyes and sort of dozed off, like being half asleep. Closest to sleep since we got sucked into this world.”
Glenn remember that elves didn’t sleep. They sort of daydreamed for a few hours at night, but weren’t really asleep. He couldn’t hold back the next yawn.
“Get some sleep, Jax,” Stephi urged. “I’ll wake you up in plenty of time.”
Glenn scratched his head and stared down at the floor beneath Stephi’s bed. “Since the window’s open I’ll sleep in my usual spot.”
A small hand pressed on Glenn’s face while a female voice called him from sleep. It was Stephi. “Get up, sleepyhead,” she whispered. “Lysine and Kalgore fell asleep a half hour ago, so keep quiet.”
While not totally refreshed, a sense of purpose urged the gnome to wakefulness. “Okay, thanks.”
Within five minutes he’d dressed, gathered his shield and cudgel, and made his way down the steps and out the door. He bit into a raw cucumber Keri had tossed him.
Glenn didn’t like to venture out alone when the streets were busy, especially when he didn’t know exactly where he was going. Actually, even when he was with a party member, he didn’t like it. Usually it felt like being a seven-year-old trying to make his way through a crowded shopping mall on Christmas Eve. He couldn’t see very well, and everyone was intent on their own specific goal. That he was armed with a cudgel with a shield strapped across his back did afford him some deference. If people noticed him.
He reached Kershaw Street an hour before Villgar was to go on duty. The street was fairly wide and lined with large workshops. The largest ones built wagons, carriages and carts. Glenn climbed and sat atop a barrel sitting along the front of a cooper’s shop.
He didn’t have to wait long. Within five minutes he spotted a man with wavy brown hair, probably in his early thirties with a deep scar angled across his chin. He wore chainmail armor with a crossbow slung across his back and a scabbarded short sword on his hip. He carried his helmet under his arm and strode with a purpose.
Before the wall guard reached him, Glenn waved to get the man’s attention.
Upon seeing the gnome a small smile crossed the man’s face. Once again Glenn was thankful people tended to have positive reactions to gnomes. Kirby said it was due to a plus ten percent modifier to Reaction Rolls when he encountered NPCs. It was one of the few benefits to being a gnome.
“You’re Villgar, right?” Glenn asked after hopping down and making his way to the guard.
The man slowed his pace. “I am.”
“I’d like to talk to you a moment, if you don’t mind.”
Villgar scowled and kept walking.
Glenn hustled to keep pace. “Your Auntie Pam told me I should talk to you.”
The scowl retreated and was replaced by a quirked left eyebrow. “About what?”
There was little shade at the current hour but Glenn spotted a narrow bit of it next to a two-story warehouse. He gestured toward the wooden wall. “Can we talk there? I promise I’ll be fast so you won’t be late.”
“Oh, my gnome friend, I assure you, you won’t keep me from roll call.” The wall guard followed Glenn into the shade. “Are you the gnome fella that hangs around and helps my aunt sell potatoes?”
“And onions,” Glenn replied and offered his hand to shake. “I’m Jax.”
“That’s right,” Villgar said. “My aunt mentioned your name, but the fact that you were a gnome is what stuck with me.”
Villgar stood with his back against the wall, placing himself completely in the shade. “Okay, what can I do for you?”
“I know this is a long shot,” Glenn prefaced. “I’m looking for a dwarf named Benxcob. He’s new to town, and I don’t have a description. Just a name.”
“Does this have anything to do with my aunt?”
“Nothing at all to do with her,” Glenn said. He watched as a wagon pulled by a team of oxen and filled with lumber creaked by. “I don’t know a lot of people. Your Aunt Pam said you didn’t see a lot of people out this way, but a dwarf might stick in your memory.”
“You’re right. I mainly watch the North Gate. Nobody uses it, unless they have the duke’s permission.”
“So, in the last week or so, you haven’t come across a strange dwarf? Here or maybe on your way to work?”
“No, sorry. I can’t say that I have.”
Glenn frowned in disappointment. “Could you keep an eye out?”
Villgar started to nod, then lifted his right hand and snapped his fingers. “I did hear about a dwarf a couple days back. Him and some big guy were winning big at the Copper Crown.”
When the wall guard saw Glenn’s eyebrows shoot up, he clarified. “It’s a gambling tavern, south of the New Square Tower. Not a place I’d go in to but my friend, Noll, he goes there.”
“What’d he say?”
“Some big warrior and a dwarf were accused of cheating at the dice table. There was a fight and the big guy ruffed up the bouncers pretty good. Noll said they left on their own, taking their winnings. The owner told them they weren’t welcome back.”
“Your friend Noll didn’t mention any names?”
“No.” Villgar shifted his helmet to his right hand and started down the street, toward the gate.
“Maybe I could talk to Noll?”
Villgar sucked in air through his teeth. “Probably not for a couple days. He’s part of the mounted patrol. They go out for three days. Sometimes up to a week.”
The guardsman sucked in a breath. “I gotta go, but I’ll ask around.”
Glenn bit his lower lip. “It’d be a drawback if he knew I was looking for him.”
The wall guard’s left eyebrow quirked up again.
Glenn said, “It has to do with gold that he shouldn’t have.”
“Owes you coin?”
“Not me, but I’m helping a friend out trying to get it back.” Glenn shrugged. “You know dwarves and gold.”
“I got ya. I’ll be careful asking around.”
Glenn thanked Villgar and hurried back to the Glade House, pleased with how things went. He was frustrated that he didn’t have a better lead. But it was a lead he could share with the party.