Runeblade

Kaius stood at the mouth of a street he had walked down countless times, staring at the closest thing to a home he’d had for over a year.

It was battered. When Rieker had said that the streets surrounding the Guildhall were relatively untouched, relative had been the key word.

Dust and ash covered the building in a thick mask, painting wood and stone a pale grey. It was an unavoidable reality — the chaos of the last week had coated the entire city thickly. Other than that, Kaius was honestly surprised how well it had held up, considering what he’d seen of other districts and streets closer to the fighting.

At some point, something had hit the exterior stone stairs that lead from the street level stables to the inn above and broken the railing. A few stones had been shattered, and more sat loose, but it would only be an afternoon's work to fix. One of the windows had been broken too — releasing a soft yellow light that had been trapped behind the other’s thick dust.

Seeing it in such good condition put a smile on his face. Even with Rieker’s assurance, there’d been a lingering weight that they’d return to find the roof had collapsed or the entire place had been levelled.

A nudge made him stumble forward. He looked back, finding Porkchop right behind him with a warm look in his eyes.

“Come on, let’s get inside.”

Grinning, Kaius hurried his way to the inn.

Taking the stairs three at a time, Kaius heard the low murmur of conversation. Hensch, talking to someone. That surprised him — he hadn’t quite expected the innkeep to be back already, given it had only been a few hours since the all clear. He supposed no one had wanted to stay down in the ruins beneath the city any longer than they had to.

But who was he talking to? There had been plenty of other guests at the inn before the siege, but they were mostly Delvers. They would all be busy — either helping with the cleanup or joining one of the spontaneous celebrations he’d seen sprouting throughout the city. Hells, he could still hear the shouts coming from the Guildhall streets away!

He opened the door.

“It’s nothing, lad. Any good innkeep knows you lose a few bottles now and then, and what’s the point in running the place if I can't open up the good stuff to celebrate?” Hensch said, sweeping behind the bar.

“You sure it’s not too expensive?” a vaguely familiar voice said, holding up a glass of brown liquor to the wardlight above.

He was skinny, but in the wiry sort of way, and sounded young. His back was turned, and he were so covered in dust it was hard to remember where Kaius knew his voice from.

“Just drink it, it’s not going to bite. Much.”

The young man shrugged, before he downed the drink. Barely a heartbeat went by before he collapsed into a splutter.

“Hells!” the young man said, turning into a cough — and revealing a familiar face. Niles.

“Niles? What in the hells are you doing here?” Kaius said, filing into the common room with his team behind him.

It was exactly as he remembered it — warm and inviting. Yan had even taken his usual spot by the fire, though he perked up as soon as Kaius spoke.

The oversized cat chirped, stretching before he padded over to Porkchop.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Kaius barely noticed Hench’s companion, too busy trying to work out how Niles had gotten to the Stables, and how he knew Hensch. Did the Innkeep know everyone in the damn city?

“Kaius, my boy, I hear you are the saviour of the hour! Come, have a drink, we are celebrating our victory and continuing life!” Hensch said, raising a bottle towards him.

Niles just kept choking, looking between him and Hensch.

“What are you guys doing here?!” Niles finally asked as they made their way to the wide bar.

“This is the inn we’ve been staying in this whole time,” Porkchop said, chuckling.

“Fate can be funny like that,” Niles said, narrowing his eyes suspiciously at Hensch.

The innkeep laughed, scratching behind his head. “I will admit, when I realised that you knew my resident team of overachievers, I might have invited you back here knowing there was a good chance they would turn up.”

Pouring three more glasses, and sliding them across the bar, he raised a brow at Porkchop. “Juice?”

“Please. I don’t understand how you lot can stomach that stuff when it doesn’t even do anything for you,”

“That’s an easy one,” Kenva replied, taking a sip of her drink. “Just about everyone figures out that getting rip-roaring drunk is a great way to level their Vitality as a teenager. By the time the stat is high enough that mundane alcohol has little effect, most people have either picked up a taste for it, or sworn off the stuff. Plus, you get plenty of Brewers, Distillers and Alchemist’s who can enhance their concoctions to work on most classers just fine.”

Porkchop just shrugged, and happily sat down while clutching a shallow bowl of apple juice with his Ghosthand artefact.

“I still want to know how the two of you met,” Kaius said, looking between Niles and Hensch.

“We ended up next to each other when the grubs broke through,” Hensch said with a sad smile, “Rough, that. Lost him for a while when I went to get some treatment for some bites — only found him again after you lot had left. He blabbered a bit about you lot, so I thought I'd bring him along when I came back.”

Niles went beet ret.

Kaius just laughed and ignored it.

“I assume that now this business is over with, you’ll be moving along, soon?” Hensch added.

“We will be in the next few weeks,” Ianmus said with a nod, “Though we’re not going to vanish just yet — plenty of clean up to help with.”

Kaius leaned over, jostling Niles with an elbow. “You still want to join us for the first leg? Dawntown will be a good place for you to find a team, especially if you want to work on getting the best Class you can.”

Niles nodded emphatically, gripping his glass tightly. “Please.”

“What about you Hensch? Get the Inn back up and running?” Kenva asked the innkeep, leaning on the bar.

“Aye,” the man nodded, “Though you might not see as much of me if you swing back through here. Been thinking about getting back out there. This whole…mess has made it pretty bloody clear the world won’t necessarily abide by the terms of my retirement.”

Hensch frowned, polishing a glass.

“You used to be a Delver, then?” Kaius asked. He’d had his suspicions of course, but he’d assumed the man had reasons he avoided bringing it up.

“More of a hunter than anything else. Never did much like the Depths — too little down time, and not enough opportunity to pick your battles. Regardless, I thought I’d lost my stomach for it — turns out I just needed to get bitten a few times to get back in the spirit of it. I Imagine I'll get plenty of opportunities, now that we’ve just gotten a sudden influx of beasts in the region.”

Hensch shook his head, before he suddenly gave them a wide smile. “Regardless, we’re celebrating — how about our resident heroes share some tall tales of conquest and valor, aye?”

Kaius smiled, before he started to wrack his brain for a story that didn’t sound too outrageous.