The tavern door groaned open, spilling me out into the chaotic symphony of the town’s main thoroughfare. The air, thick with the aromatic cocktail of horse manure, baking bread, and something vaguely swampy, was a definite step down from the stew. Crooked, timber-framed buildings leaned against each other like tired drunks, their upper floors jutting out over a street teeming with a frankly bewildering assortment of life. Gnomes with beards braided into intricate knots haggled with dwarves whose arms were thicker than my waist. A tall, willowy elf with an expression of perpetual disdain glided through the crowd, somehow avoiding the muck that clung to everyone else’s boots. It was like a Renaissance Faire had a baby with Comic-Con, and that baby had even more questionable personal hygiene than the usual suspects.
“I must confess, Mistress Hawking, the olfactory assault upon my delicate senses is most grievous,” a prim voice drawled from beside my ankle. “One might surmise this city’s primary exports are pestilence and poor life choices.”
I looked down at Bartholomew, my gray Persian cat, who was picking his way through the street with the exaggerated care of a bomb disposal expert. His fluffy tail was held ramrod straight to avoid contact with the ground.
“Yeah, well, my primary export right now is desperation,” I muttered, clutching the small, surprisingly heavy leather pouch at my waist. I’d found it on the nightstand, a parting gift from the tavern owner, I guess. I gave it a little jiggle. The sad little clink it made suggested I couldn’t even afford a name-brand soda, let alone a new identity. My Stitch-themed fleece pants, while the pinnacle of comfort, were attracting more than a few pointed stares. And not the good kind.
“First things first, Bart. I need to look less like I just escaped a slumber party and more like I belong in a world that apparently skipped the invention of indoor plumbing.”
“A laudable goal,” he sniffed. “Though I fear a change of attire can do little to mask the aura of… modernity that clings to you like cheap perfume.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, you pretentious dick.”
I scanned the street, my eyes skipping over a butcher hacking at a carcass of something unsettlingly large and a potion-seller hawking glowing blue liquids in repurposed wine bottles. Finally, I spotted a hanging wooden sign carved with the image of a needle and thread. A floating box popped up next to the sign: Seams Legit.
The shop was a cramped space, smelling of lanolin, dust, and cedar. Bolts of rough-spun wool and linen were stacked to the rafters, and assorted garments hung from wooden pegs. A woman with a face like a well-worn map and arms corded with muscle looked up from behind a counter, her eyes giving me a swift, dismissive once-over.
“Lost, dearie?” she asked, her voice as coarse as the burlap sacks in the corner.
“Nope. Just in the market for a complete personality transplant, starting with the pants.” I gestured to my Disney-themed attire. “Got anything that doesn’t feature a cartoon alien?”
She grunted, a sound that could have been amusement or indigestion. “Depends. Got coin?”
I upended my pouch onto the counter. Five copper pieces and two slightly larger silver ones rolled out. The woman stared at the pathetic pile, then back at me. Her eyebrow arched so high it nearly vanished into her hairline.
“That’ll get you a patch for your britches,” she said flatly. “Maybe.”
My heart sank. Of course. In a world with actual dragons, my ill-gotten gains were worthless. I was about to launch into a probably-futile argument when Bartholomew, who had been inspecting a pair of leather boots with an air of profound disappointment, spoke up.
“Ahem. Madam,” he began, hopping gracefully onto the counter. The shopkeeper’s eyes widened. “Whilst my mistress’s current sartorial choices are, admittedly, an affront to good taste and decency, the quality of your wares leaves something to be desired. This stitching,” he proclaimed, tapping a tiny paw against a leather jerkin, “is haphazard at best. The tension is inconsistent. I have seen superior craftsmanship in a garden spider’s web.”
The woman stared at my cat, her jaw slack.
“Did that cat just critique my seam work?”
“He’s a very discerning customer,” I said, deciding to just roll with it. “Picky. You know how Persians are.”
“Furthermore,” Bartholomew continued, warming to his subject, “this linen is of a pitiably low thread count. It possesses the texture of a scrubbing brush. One would likely chafe in the most unmentionable of regions.”
The shopkeeper, Adda, as her nameplate later informed me, blinked twice. A slow, dangerous smile spread across her lips.
“Is that so? The fluff-ball’s a critic, is he?” She looked from Bartholomew back to me, a new, calculating glint in her eye. “Alright, funny girl. I’ve got a pile of cast-offs and trade-ins in the back. Mismatched, a few stains, but sturdy. For your discerning partner’s expert consultation—and silence—I’ll let you pick an outfit for that little pile of metal you call a purse.”
Victory. Sort of.
Twenty minutes later, I emerged from the shop feeling significantly less comfortable but infinitely more appropriate. The fleece was gone, replaced by a pair of scratchy but serviceable brown wool trousers, a loose-fitting cream-colored tunic that smelled faintly of someone else’s sweat, and a pair of sturdy-soled boots that were only a half-size too big. I felt like an extra from a low-budget Robin Hood movie. It was a definite improvement.
“Well,” I said, doing a little twirl. “How do I look?”
“Like a particularly destitute peasant, Mistress,” Bartholomew stated without hesitation. “The color does nothing for your complexion.”
“My complexion is the least of my worries. Now, for phase two: not getting immediately shanked for my two remaining copper pieces.” My eyes were drawn to the rhythmic clang of a hammer on steel. I followed my ears and found a blacksmith’s forge a few streets over, its entrance a glowing maw of heat and soot. A mountain of a man, his bald head gleaming with sweat, was pounding a red-hot piece of metal into the shape of a sword. Perfect.
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I strode over, trying to project an air of confidence I did not feel.
“Excuse me? Mr. Blacksmith, sir?”
The man, whom I mentally christened ‘Thor’s bigger, angrier brother’, glanced over, his hammer pausing mid-swing.
“What is it, lass? I’m not in the business of makin’ tiny horseshoes for talking cats, if that’s what you’re here for.” He nodded towards Bartholomew. Apparently, word traveled fast.
“Uh, no. I was wondering… I’m a little short on coin,” I began, which was the understatement of the century. “Like, completely out of coin. But I need a weapon. Nothing fancy! Just… something pointy.”
He let out a booming laugh that shook the anvils.
“A pointy stick and a prayer, eh? Lass, a good dagger costs more than a week’s lodging at the inn you just walked out of. A sword?” He gestured with his hammer at the blade he was working on. “This’ll feed my family for two months.”
Crap. Of course. Supply and demand. My ‘Communications’ degree hadn’t prepared me for pre-industrial economics. My shoulders slumped.
“Right. Stupid. Sorry to bother you.” I started to turn away, defeated, when an idea—a desperate, pathetic idea—sparked in my brain. “Wait. What if I don’t need you to make it? What if I just… borrow a tool? For like, five minutes?”
He squinted at me. “Borrow what tool?”
“That.” I pointed to a small hand axe lying on a stump. “I just need to find a good, sturdy branch. Make my own pointy stick.”
The blacksmith stared at me. He stared at the axe. He stared back at me. The silence stretched, filled only by the crackle of the forge. I was positive he was going to either laugh me out of his shop or flatten me into a Paige-pancake.
Then, to my utter astonishment, he shrugged his massive shoulders.
“Five minutes,” he grunted, turning back to his sword. “Don’t take yer own foot off. The healer charges extra for stupidity.”
I snatched the axe before he could change his mind, the weight of it surprisingly solid in my hand. I found a fallen branch from a sturdy-looking oak tree at the edge of town and set to work. It was harder than it looked. The axe was sharp, but I was clumsy, hacking away at the wood in uneven, jarring strokes. I got a splinter in my palm within the first minute.
“A truly fearsome display of martial prowess, Mistress,” Bartholomew commented dryly from a safe distance. “The very splinters you create shall surely strike fear into the hearts of your enemies.”
“Shut up, Bart. I’m creating a deterrent.” I gritted my teeth, ignoring the stinging in my hand and focusing on shaving one end of the branch into something resembling a point. It wasn’t elegant. It wasn’t sharp enough to be a spear, really. It was, for all intents and purposes, just a big, pointy stick.
After returning the axe with a grateful nod to the still-bemused blacksmith, I stood in the middle of the street, surveying my situation. I was dressed in secondhand clothes, completely broke, and armed with a piece of sharpened firewood. It was, without a doubt, the lowest point of my entire adult life.
And yet… I couldn’t stop a small, wry smile from tugging at my lips. I looked down at my new weapon. It was pathetic. It was ridiculous. But I had made it. I had identified a problem and, using a talking cat and a borrowed axe, I had solved it. It wasn’t a turkey leg, and it wasn’t a paycheck. It was a pointy stick. And right now, it felt like a hell of a start.
“Alright, furball,” I said, resting the stick on my shoulder. “Let’s go find out what kind of trouble we can get into.”
“Mistress, I must protest. I am not a ball, nor do I possess any.” Bart argued as he followed on my heels.
“Tell that to my living room rug.” I shot back.The quest notification, a common feature of this bizarre new reality, pulsed again. I’d chosen to ignore it for the time being, but desperation, fueled by a rapidly depleted coin purse and the terrifying realization that I couldn’t exactly demand a latte at the local tavern, had forced me to glance. This one, however, was different from what I expected. It wasn’t a demand for dragon-slaying or goblin-herding. It was a missing person. A rather important missing person, if the accompanying illustration was anything to go by. A knight, clad in gleaming silver armor, his face obscured by a regal helm. The name beneath him read: Sir Kaelen the Bold.
“Great, another knight in shining armor. Probably off chasing some damsel in distress or, you know, getting himself into trouble that the local peasantry has to bail him out of.”
My second thought, however, the one I didn’t verbalize, was considerably more pragmatic. Let’s be honest, my current financial situation was more dire than a peasant’s during a famine. My overpriced degree had not prepared me for anything remotely resembling the ability to haggle for mystical artifacts or, you know, survive, and my previous job at Medieval Times seemed like a distant, almost quaint, prelude to this absolute dumpster fire of existence.
“A missing knight, you say?” Bartholomew’s voice, a dry rustle like parchment being slowly unfurled, cut through my internal monologue. He sat perched on the windowsill of my tiny, drafty room, meticulously grooming a paw with the air of someone performing a deeply unpleasant but necessary chore. “How dreadfully cliché. One does hope he hasn’t merely misplaced his sword again. Is this perhaps our bewildered would-be hero?”
I snorted, already tapping the glowing notification. The details swam into focus.
[Sir Kaelen the Bold, Knight of the Silver Gryphon, last seen departing the capital city of Aethelgard two days prior, en route to the Whispering Peaks.][Mission objective: Unknown, but presumed to be of significant importance to the Crown.]
[Reward: 150 Gold Pieces, plus a token of the Crown’s gratitude.]
Vague, but promising.
“Cliché or not, Bart, it’s a job. And right now, my rent is due, and ‘The Gilded Goblet’ isn’t going to magically refill my coin pouch with the sheer force of my existential dread.” I scrolled through the quest parameters. No mention of deadly monsters, no curses to break, just… find a guy. Seemed almost… manageable. “Besides, ‘Knight of the Silver Gryphon’ sounds important. Important people usually have important amounts of money to spare for people who find them.”
Bartholomew sighed, a sound that conveyed centuries of world-weariness.
“One can only hope his ‘importance’ extends to a willingness to compensate our efforts with something more substantial than a pat on the head and a ‘well done, peasant.’ Though, given your previous encounters with management, we shouldn’t hold our collective breath.”
He had a point. Six jobs in seven months was not a great track record.
“Alright, alright, I get it. Trust no one, expect the worst, and always check their pockets for hidden valuables.” I mentally accepted the quest and the notification shrunk to a small icon in the corner of my vision.
As I slung my battered satchel over my shoulder, Bartholomew hopped down from the windowsill with surprising agility for a cat who clearly believed gravity was a personal insult.
“Indeed. And perhaps, while we are out and about, we could address certain other… pressing matters? Such as the acquisition of more significant victuals than stale bread and questionable stew?”
“You say that like I haven’t already considered it, you furry little opportunist.” I grinned. “That’s why I’m hitting the message board on the way out.”
The town square was a hive of activity, as usual. Merchants hawked their wares, children chased stray dogs, and the ever-present scent of woodsmoke and something somehow more manure-like than the actual manure hung in the air. The quest board, a large, weathered slab of oak near the town gates, was plastered with a chaotic mosaic of parchment. From requests for escorts through bandit-infested forests to pleas for help warding off mischievous imps from vegetable patches, it was a testament to the sheer volume of ‘adventures’ available.
I scanned the board, my eyes darting from one scrawled message to the next. The Sir Kaelen notification was still prominently displayed, a beacon of potential income. But I was a woman of…limited talents. Diversification was key.
“Ah, here we go,” I muttered, pointing to a crisp, official-looking notice. “‘Urgent: Delivery of Rare Herbs to the Alchemist of Oakhaven. Reward: 50 silver coins.’ Oakhaven isn’t too far off the path to the Whispering Peaks. And ‘rare herbs’ sounds far less dangerous than ‘rare dragon eggs’.”
Bartholomew, who had been observing with a disdainful flick of his tail, spoke up.
“One hopes these ‘rare herbs’ do not require one to wrestle a Grumpy Mandrake. Those things have a frightful temper, and their roots are notoriously clingy.”
“Fingers crossed,” I replied, peeling the parchment from the board. “And look at this one!” I gestured to another notice, this one written in a more frantic, scrawling hand. “‘Lost Cat–Answers to ‘Snowball.’ Reward: 10 gold coins for her return. Very dearly missed.’”
Bartholomew’s ears perked up, his usual ennui momentarily replaced by a flicker of something resembling interest. “A lost feline? How relatable. Though I suspect this ‘Snowball’ lacks my own inherent sophistication.”
“Ten gold coins for finding a cat, Bart? We’re practically rolling if we can get that kind of payout.” I carefully detached that notice as well. “See? Sir Kaelen for the big bucks, herbs for a quick mid-range payout, and a runaway fluffball for a nice bonus. This is what I call a well-rounded strategy.”
I tucked the notices into my satchel as two more quest icons appeared. The sun was beginning its descent, casting long shadows across the square. The time for planning was over; the time for doing—or, more accurately, the time for walking—had begun.
“Alright, Bartholomew, my furry little shadow,” I said, turning towards the town gates. “Let’s go find a knight, some herbs, and a very important, presumably fluffy, cat. And if we happen to stumble upon a coffee shop along the way, I won’t complain.”
Bartholomew stretched languidly.
“A coffee shop? My dear Paige, one can dream. Perhaps if we are exceptionally fortunate, we shall encounter a particularly well-stocked milk bar. Until then, lead on. Eldoria awaits, with all its predictable absurdities.”
With that, I stepped out of the town gates, the promise of adventure, however peculiar, a dull ember of hope in my chest.