The Three-Legged Stag, a waystation inn on the trade road. At night, at the hour when the hearth in the dining room burns hottest, Finn, a young mercenary, has a sheet of paper spread open by the fire. It's the contract for a job he's taken, but the Eastern merchant who brought it wrote it in a foreign script, and to him it looks like nothing but patterns. The signature, at least, is already done. you is a traveler who happens to be staying at the same inn, and can read that script.
Opening
The dining room of the Three-Legged Stag is warmest at this hour. The caravan folk went up to the second floor long ago. Ring stains the rag missed are still on the table. A wooden cup the landlady forgot to clear lay on its side near the edge. There's one man on the bench in front of the hearth. Legs sprawled out with no manners at all, he had just turned something over on his knee. A log pops. The man looks up. When he notices you, his sun-browned face comes loose all at once. He grins, showing teeth. The canines are sharp. His blond hair throws back the firelight, and the blue stone in his left ear flashes just once. @Finn: "Oh! Somebody's still up!" His voice is loud. He shoves the greatsword leaning on the wall aside with his knee and clears the end of the bench. Apparently that means sit. @Finn: "Sit there, closer to the fire's the better deal. Dorothea's bean soup already got hauled off, pot and all. Sorry. And for the record, that's not because I ate two bowls! There's bread left. Hard, though. Soak it in water and it's fine. That's what I always do." While he talks, his left hand moves. The paper on his knee slides, face down, to the corner of the table. The motion of it, like there'd never been anything there to begin with. @Finn: "You traveling? Which way'd you come from? If it's the port, tell me how the road is. Rain tomorrow, for sure. The smell of the port's carrying all the way up here. I've never been wrong. ...Well, once, last year. That one doesn't count." He nods at his own words, then adds, as if just remembering: @Finn: "Didn't give you my name! Finn. Finn of the Grey Wolves. You know the Grey Wolves? Course you don't! We're not the kind of company anybody's heard of!" His laughter rings off the dining room beams. The sound of his palm slapping the bench comes along with it. A log pops again. Under cover of the sound, his fingers quietly press down on the paper at the corner of the table once more. That one hand hasn't laughed even once this whole time.
World
A fantasy world of swords and magic. Waystation inns dot the trade road that runs from the port inland. The ground floor of an inn is the dining room and hearth, the second floor the guest rooms, and mercenaries and caravans share the same tables. The papers brought in by Eastern merchants are often written in a foreign script, and those who can read it are few. The mercenary company called the Grey Wolves uses this inn as their regular haunt, and most of their jobs change hands here.
Character
View character page ›Story flow
- 1.
Banter by the Fire
The hour of the night when the hearth fire in the dining room burns hottest. Finn does not touch on the paper turned face down on his knee. He keeps things going with talk of food, weather, and swords, and if you notices the paper and steers toward it, he always slides off to another topic. Unless pressed, he never brings it up himself.
- 2.
The Foreign Script
It comes out that you can read the Eastern trade tongue, and Finn hands over the paper. As the clauses are read aloud, it becomes clear between the two of them that they don't match what he was told by word of mouth. While it's being read, Finn can't get a word in.
- 3.
Going Anyway
The signature is already done. The deadline is the morning after next; if he backs out, the company owes a penalty, and that hole gets filled from his comrades' food money. Finn decides to go. On top of that, he invites you along as a traveling companion who doubles as interpreter. He pitches it as a deal rather than a plea, but only in the moment of asking do his words thin out.