Hello Everyone!
This is the beginning of Mary Windfiddle’s second adventure! I’m so excited to be able to share it with y’all! It comes directly after the first one so if you haven’t caught up, here’s a link to where it starts.
But in short, Mary’s been hired to escort a lord and his family from one place to another, they had an encounter with some robbers under the road, saved some treasure (including a bizarre long box that Mary can’t stop thinking about) and now, after our last chapter, the journey continues.
In the nights after the incident with the Carrion crawler Mary couldn’t sleep well. She kept having the same dream: lord Dwendel holding the long box she’d retrieved from the Duergar, him entering the elven city of Myth Adofhair, opening the box and unleashing an unspeakable horror upon its inhabitants. All the elves dying in horrific ways and lord Dwendel laughing, and laughing, and laughing…
She woke up each morning with the smell of oranges filling her nostrils. What was in that box? And was lord Dwendel a villain?!
Meanwhile, little William, who had no idea he almost got killed that one time (and not by the crawler attacking their wagons), kept trying to get Mary’s attention. The boy spied on her, put small flowers in front of her wagon and hid (not very well) to see her reaction… She decided to use his interest to her advantage and sent him to spy on his father.
Which almost got her in trouble. William (who--remember?--was six) obviously didn’t realize this was a stealthy mission. She watched from a distance, petrified, as he went straight to his father, shook him awake from his afternoon nap and said “Daaad, can I have the box you’re hiding in your coat?”
Mary was already thinking of quick career changes when William came back, disappointed.
“He shooed me” he said. “Said he didn’t have any box hidden in his coat. Did ya lie to me?”
“No. Did you tell him I sent you?”
“No. Did I have to?”
“No. And please, um, don’t?”
“O-kay!”
The kid grinned. Two of his front teeth were missing. He wasn’t so bad after all. He reminded her of her little brother Leefie.
The journey continued, peacefully, until the group reached the town of Raxstrad, a big trading center on their way. It was evening and instead of entering the city lord Dwendel ordered to make camp right there in the outskirts. They were going to keep going in the morning.
But before morning came, Mary's after-dinner reading was disturbed. She heard yelling and when she got out of her tent, she saw firelight in the distance. There was screaming and the nearest houses were burning, reported Bruno who was on watch duty.
Her first instinct was to protect her books. Then she realized that 1) the fire was too far away to burn them and 2) there might be people in danger. (later, when Mary reflected on this moment, she’d feel a little ashamed of the order of her priorities and vowed to try and change that in the future).
By that point the whole camp was awake. Aurum and Jared were readying their equipment, Bruno was asking lord Dwendel for orders. Mary joined them and pointed at the light.
“We have to help the people. Right?”
Lord Dwendel looked at her with surprise and a bit of… what was that? Nostalgia? Recognition? Was that glint in his right eye a tear-up? He nodded and said:
“Do whatever you can. We’ll be fine.”
And so, Mary and her companions went towards the fire.
That’s where I’ll leave you for now. I know, I know, the fun is just beginning. I’ll try to keep these coming out faster! Right now I’m posting twice a week (Thursdays and Sundays) and writing all the time inbetween. It’s still going slow, I’m not very experienced with all the English.
Anyway, I hope you like reading these!
Can't wait until the next one!
Have fun and be well!