Three hard days with all the horses and humanoids snorting up path dirt. Weary, they tried to get the dust off their clothes. Wanting to refresh their face as well, making it all a little less intended. Then again what else could you do in any of these situations? The pressure of being forced together annoyed everyone. At this point, they just wanted not see the faces around them. Not to eat the food Kriti made over a fire. Not to be stuck speaking together again. The cleanliness of a bath or shower wouldn’t be even half as comfortable as the comfort of not being with the others. The town begged them to stop.

  The tavern had all the right colors and markers. It had the people sitting outside drinking from flagons. A nice sign for you to identify what it was, but the entire town left a lot to be desired. In a town this small this size on the road, they had one option. Go to this place. Yet inside, they saw only one person.

  The scent of unwashed bodies, spilled beer, and feet pervaded the room. On the walls all around they’d mounted fish heads, a bear leg, and stag’s chests all in various taxidermy styles, many of which had nests of spiders within or over them as they went about collecting the few flies that fluttered about.

  Spoon leading the way but he froze, locking up the tiny door behind him. Not yet getting a face full of mildew covered tables and angry unclean bartender, the others pushed him in with only complaints of “Spoon move already?”

  It did not help matters that Bodi happened to be next through the door and pushed along the slender man, so they all piled in yelling at Spoon who stood frozen in horror staring at a giant flaking mounted mountain swordfish that explained the taverns name of Cutlass Noses.

  Seeing how absolutely nobody else was in there and they were roundly swearing and shaking fists at one another, the only occupant jumped forward.

  “Welcome to Cut Nose!” He sounded more like a sailor than a man who’d lived any time inside the small town nowhere near the sea, and the river outside certainly wasn’t large enough to support any kind of boat traffic to the ocean.

  “Can I start you off with the house special, Ship’s Spit?”

  “Ship’s Spit?” The Kriti had the most horrified expression Spoon had ever seen on her face. The words themselves seeming to indicate to her at least the very wrongness of being here.

  “Ship’s Spit. It’s an ale made of the finest we have to offer. It’s the vintage everyone drinks around here, and,” here he leaned in pretending to speak more quietly like telling a secret, “it’s much, much better than any of the house wine which’s main ingredients tend to be less grape than you’d expect.”

  He broke into a sweat despite his large size and general demeanor, the man fairly oozed of pure desperation. Considering the general area around him, it might be because he’d gotten an infection from the place’s décor. Or maybe a few spider bites.

  “Sure, Ship’s Spit.” It was Bodi, who unlike the others, remained unhorrified. “What’s the best eats?”

  The sailor considered the orc and awarded him the best smile he could offer. “Nothing that’s on the board. Ask for something not pre-made. The boss likes to hold on to things for uncommon customers you see and if you happen to have a specific area of concern then we’d be forced to make you a specific item.”

  “In that situation,” said Kriti inspect the chair nearby as if it might be a mimic, “we all have a deep dislike for extra salt and would prefer you season all new dishes with just the correct amount.”

  The sailor gave her a single missing toothed smile. His back left canine having gone. A common sign of mermaid toothrot disease and along with excessive sweating generally a very bad curse.

  “Thank you, miss. We can accommodate your parties needs just fine. Do you want me to set up the table first or start cooking?”

  “Food!” declared Bodi with gusto. The cook sailor gave him a friendly gape toothed smile before heading off for the back. “Give us whatever is best!”

  And so, they all sat down at the table or tried to, that is. They first had to pull together the surrounding chairs to fit into the areas and then after that they had to cozy up together as the tabletop was a bit too small, and all the while Spoon kept glancing uncomfortably at the swordfish hung on the wall.

  “Afraid of fish?” Laural asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “You know I’m allergic,” he muttered.

  “You’re worried that you’ll have to eat that? Because I doubt they’d force you too,” Day inspected Spoon with deep, uncomfortable scrutiny. “What’s your nickname for?

  “I have an ability,” he huffed. “A unique knack. A quirk, really.”

  “Oh, please enlighten us.” Day sounded friendly but then cut a sharp glance at Kriti. “Everyone else has been so forthcoming.”

  “I don’t want to say.” Spoon swiveled in his chair. “Whenever I do, people laugh at me and I can only take so much.”

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  “We won’t laugh.” Laural assured him.

  “You will,” he argued.

  “No, please,” Nettle prodded, “Come on now. You have to tell us.”

  He wanted anything to save him, but the entirely empty room gave him no outs now that it got started. Even if he had no confidence in their claims.

  “I can call any spoon to me.”

  They all busted a gut with laughter.

  He scowled at them all.

  “What about forks?”

  “Please tell me a knife works instead?”

  “How do you even discover that?”

  He lifted his head, refusing to lower himself by pretending it was ok. “How anyone would discover spoon recall. I accidentally dropped one as a child and instantly pulled it back to myself. I’ve been training and I can actually pull more spoons than you might think”.

  “If we ever need to beat someone to death with spoons,” Day covered her mouth to chuckle more, “you’ll be our very first call.”

  “If we ever run across a living soup, you can really help us out.”

  He felt betrayed. They’d said they wouldn’t make fun of him. Then, they had.

  “In any situation, I can do that so if it does become useful then I will employ it. Do any of you,” he hesitated but then blurted out, “carry a spoon? I wouldn’t’ want to awkwardly reveal it. I once traveled with a man who kept it in his trousers and the situation was very unfortunate.”

  They howled with laughter and he gave a cautious, insincere smile. This was how he usually handled the ridicule. Tell a few jokes, then it was back to being his normal again. But it still hurt a little. He’d not picked this. He’d not gotten the chance for anything better. He practiced with a spoon every day of his life before the mission. Just in case he could use spoon recall someday.

  Annoyed, Spoon waved out a hand. The vzing sound warned them. They all had to duck as an entire weeks worth of spoons zinging into his hand. “Perhaps you’d like some clean implements,” Spoon handed them out.

  “Ultimate party trick,” Nettle suggested, inspecting his clean spoon.

  A loud noise of creaking came from the narrow, spindly staircase. A thing descended it. This was squat, yellow eyed, and only vaguely humanoid. It was not the misshapenness of him, but the smacking of his lips and lumen like size that give him the face of a bloated carcass of cow. What species he actually was got nearly swept up in the various layers of clothing that overed him. Shiny velvets, gold chains handing from a hip pocked, and staining gray lace at his hingers tips and ruffling his throat. Six or so limbs, two on the ground and four in the air.

  Perhaps a which witch ensorcelled him to be a multi-limbed frog instead an actual being. Or maybe he ate the switch witch. A switch witch curse does a real number on anyone. One could not immediately tell at one glance the species.

  “I’ve customers,” his voice sounded oozing. It then turning into a single shrill note, “Waiter!”

  The sailor came back out through the swingy double doors and the scent of a delightful roasting lamb came with him. He’d put on a very clean, very white apron and mopped the sweat off his face with a blue handkerchief that appears to be the signaling flag of a ship cut down into one small piece.

  “Yes, sir?” his voice sounded both squeakier and ever so slightly strained.

  “Did you greet our guests appropriately and offer them the house wine?”

  “Of course, sir!” It was a sharp report and he gave one longing look back at his kitchen, before the owner went back to shouting at him.

  “Then why?” his voice quivered with sudden nearly overwhelming emotions, before exploding into anger, “are they not drinking anything? Why don’t they have the wine?”

  He gave a hoppy jump that made his yellow stained white cravat flopped up and down.

  “Sir, they order Ship’s Spit. I was just getting it chilled for them.”

  Enraged by their reasonable answer the short man raised his fish shaking and nearly frothing at the mouth. “Did they ask for it chilled?”

  “No, sir. But they are clearly hot traveler-“

  “Do I pay you to inspect my guests?”

  “No, sir!”

  “Do I pay you to chill drinks and clean things?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I pay you to serve them drinks.” He jumped up and down now twice, “Get them their drinks, you incompetent floor mop!”

  Head bowed the big man said, “Yes, sir.”

  He disappeared into the kitchen, paler, sweatier, and more miserable than the first time they’d seen him.

  The froggish being curled his lips and turned to them, changing his voice carefully into a grandiose almost shout.

  “I’m incredibly sorry for his incredible incompetence. It’s so hard to find good help. People just don’t want to work these days. What is the world coming to? I’m sure you-” he turned to Nettle. “Understand my dilemma, dark lama. But with my proper instruction you’ll be served appropriately in my humble property.”

  He gave an up and down head waggle that only seemed to make the whole body that much worse and then came right on over. He took a seat not at their table, because he could not fit, but just across from them to stare directly at the party and comments, “I’ll be here to monitor your meal and service the entire time. Pretend I’m not here. A fly in the spider’s web as you will.”

  “I don’t think that’s the expre-“

  Day let out a hiss of breath being labored in the side by Laural who shook her head at the human. Elf and human flashed angry looks at each other, but the waiter came out hastily.

  He carried their drinks and quickly offered them out to everyone with the smacking noise of the lips and tongue of the owner echoing around the whole task. When his back was turned to the owner, the sailor gave them apologetic expression. The whole group didn’t know much what to say. They drank fast because that kept them occupied and they did not have to try and converse.

  Despite the lukewarm temperatures, it was decent to drink. Perhaps not to everyone’s taste and certainly the alcohol would have been better if it had been chilled, but they were all aware of why such a thing couldn’t happen.

  Soon, Bodi leaned back. The chair creaked, moaned and the back fell off. Bodi tumbled backward out of his chair. His knees caught in the lower half of the table and his upper body thunking into the ground painfully. Not orc rated weight apparently. Everyone snatched their drinks off the heaving surface and uneasily perked up forward in their chairs. Day left her chair to help Bodi scrambled out from under the wooden trap-ish, contraption of a chair.

  As she went, the toad leapt to his feet yelling and swearing at everyone and everything. “You’ll have to pay for that chair. It’s not my fault orcs are fat. He should have known better than to lean back. Waiter! Waiter, get out here!”

  “We don’t need the waiter,” insisted Nettle. Who, like all of them, knew the waiter was also their chef and they wanted to eat and flee as soon as humanly possible. Their go to MO was running away from big dangerous things.

  He glowered further. “I’ll talk to him in the back.”

  They could hear shouting coming from the kitchen even louder than before and all the burbling voice of the leader and then he came out whipping spittle off his face and rubbing it into the ascot.