4 The One-Legged Duck

The One-Legged Duck was no stranger to busy nights. Adventurers, merchants, plain alcoholics. Characters of all sorts were welcome to partake in an evening without worry or judgement as long as they had the coin. Miss Maple, the owner of the establishment and a former adventurer, would beat those who couldn't pay with her tower shield from her glory days or with her boulder-like biceps. The patrons were always given the freedom of choice.

Past the collage of posters messily tacked on the quest board by the wooden double doors, and further in past the hurling dwarf outside the restroom, Maya and Athalos found a spot by the counter.

Miss Maple came over and eyed Maya from head to toe, "Unusual attire but that don't stop anyone from getting one's fill. What will it be?"

Athalos held two fingers up. "Two ales for me and my friend here, fairest lady of Dernham."

Miss Maple rolled her eyes. "Everyone knows you're blind, Athalos."

After the drinks came, Maya didn't waste a breath and downed the ale. She brushed the froth on her mouth with her wrung pink sleeve and noticed the odd stares and glances that went her way. She knew her outfit stuck out like a sore thumb but she returned the same curious look to them. "Dwarves… Elves… I still can't believe what I'm seeing."

"The night's too young for boasting, Lady Maya," joked Athalos. But he wanted to dig deeper into why, at the very mention of the popular songstress, his friend's mood darkened and spontaneous swearing came forth from her mouth. "Painful humor aside, are you friends with Io Hara? Because I must have one of those things she pioneered in Ghala. These things were called autographs!"

"I don't think you'd appreciate them, Athalos." Maya was fixated on an old poster on the wall past the counter. The corners flapped and the parchment yellowed with age and probably other liquids but the crude sketch of Io Hara was unmistakable. It was a poster of the songstress' first concert.

As if timed by the gods, another mug of ale slid perfectly to her hand. She took a sip then scoffed. "Friends? That was my biggest mistake. Don't let her fool you. There's nothing behind that annoying perfect smile but the worst person ever."

"Another thing Athalos won't see in this lifetime." Athalos blurbed and whimpered inside his cup. "Seems I'm more scathed here than out in the frightful woods."

"I need to get it together," conceded Maya. "How do you survive in this world?"

"Perks of the unseeing, Lady Maya." Athalos tapped his temple with a finger. He relished his turn for boastfulness. "When one loses sight, all opportunities presented are heightened. I am living proof of adaptation to the dark. One could say bats are the better proof but strictly on the category of humans, I raise my mug up high and drink to thee!"

"That's not even your mug."

"Perks, Lady Maya." There was no dent in Athalos' armor of buzzed confidence. He pointed to Maya's ale and counted on his fingers how many mugs she caused drought. He lost count and gave up. "See, my tab has been paid through the unaware and sympathetic generosity of others. Unless you can produce the clinking sound that matters in this world, I suggest you run as fast as you did with the wolf."

"D-Don't you have any cash to spare?! I swear I'll pay you back, Athalos! I'm good for it!"

"I was lost in the woods for a day to enhance my skill with a bow and to hunt rabbits for a chance to fill my belly." Athalos shook his head and grimaced. "Did you find me with any dead rabbits?"

"Oh my- W-What am I gonna do?" Hands on her head and elbows on the dirty counter, Maya's blue eyes darted aimlessly in panic. She was naive to think that money didn't revolve this world too.

She leered at the quest board but then recalled her dance of death with the wolf. She slumped on her chair like a limp noodle. "What am I thinking? I don't know how to fight! And that wolf— I've never been in a place like this. Monsters, bandits, magic- Not gonna lie, that sounds pretty cool but I don't even know how to use a sword!"

"It's probably easier than it looks!" assured Athalos. "Most of the green-blooded lads and ladies I've met- and I offer this cup to them in the heavens- waved their swords and hoped for the best until they spilled blood! Proven technique with a two in fifty chance to boast come the morn, I say."

Maya didn't like those odds one bit. She wondered how the hell Io Hara survived in this dangerous world which breathed blood and battle. "If that two-faced vixen can do it, I'll be damned if I don't."

"Then sing, my lady." Athalos nodded towards the crowd and hoped he did in the right direction.

Through the robust chatter of the busy tavern, there was a female bard on the small stage, which really was a box meant for cabbage or potatoes, in a humble attire most associated with budding bards. She had a plain open-necked muddy grey dress, fitted at the waist by a leather corset, and a cloak, buttoned between her collarbones, that looked like the coarse brown mane of a horse. Flashy threads required heavy coin, a sponsor if one was lucky.

Armed with a banged up lute, the bard, long brown-haired and visibly unbathed, sang with melodic grace. She sang about Dernham and the normal person's struggle with life.

"O' King Hubert, Hark the cry of your people.

The soil is rotting from war and of treasons,

Cut off their hands and till the ground new,

The Kingdom of Dernham begs of you to~"

Her song garnered no cheers but the patrons nodded in silence, close to their hearts. Some spat to the wooden floor beneath, not at the bard but Dernham's current position.

Derham wasn't thriving as most kingdoms would pursue. It was known for a modest life of sweat-browed work and humble dreams of adventure. But a dark cloud lingered above and lowered the morale of many.

In the recent decade, Dernham partnered with the kingdoms of Sathuwen and Zilles in order to halt the advances of the rogue kingdom of Murith. Murith, a kingdom of savages well-honed in a weapon's metal and whose hearts leaned towards greed, pillaged neighboring lands without mercy and feigned any notion of a truce.

The three kingdoms of the west rallied together with the promise of peace and fertile lands justified for the taking. While the fight continued to this day and was far from over, the losses of Murith piled up and so did these vacant lands. The allocation of these war-fought lands didn't go as Dernham hoped.

Dernham was the kingdom furthest west by the coast. Its troops and contributions had to travel the furthest, passing east through Sathuwen and Zilles for Murith was further inland. Whenever the kingdoms of Sathuwen and Zilles claimed victory and the land neighboring their borders, they gave Dernham their own land instead, lands by Dernham's borders. The soil of those lands were closer to dust.

The people of Dernham clamored to withdraw from the fight and King Hubert lent a deaf ear. They knew they weren't paid equally even when they spilled their share of blood. The defense turned to conquest and the people's vibrance turned dim for Dernham became a shadow of its former self.

The tavern's patrons felt the wound in their hearts but their solemnity was quickly overturned with raised eyebrows because of what the bard sang next about livestock life in Dernham.

The bard looked at the captivated audience and changed her tune to a single bland strum after every phrase.

"No fresh green grass.

No milk in our breasts.

The cows cry so bad,

Moo-hu-hu~"

The bard, with widened teal eyes like an owl, stared at the room, eager to see their reaction. She found them silent and possibly stunned in awe. There was no negative reaction so again she strummed a chord like a chop of a butcher's knife and continued, "Muddy cute pigs. Thin and nothing to eat. They're really sad, oink-hu—"

A slice of roasted beef slapped the bard's face. No one would have any more of it. They tried but no. Cabbages, tomatoes, spoons, and something she knew wasn't gravy were hurled at her. She shieled herself with her lute as she stepped down from the stage.

"Perks, Lady Maya." Athalos said as he chugged the ale of a patron preoccupied with hate. "They laugh at that bard but she's belly-up laughing harder. That's one way to get free grub."

"My chair was an inch off the ground." Maya released her grip on the backrest of her chair. She realized that that bard had the biggest balls in the tavern. It took guts to take a chance like that especially when around half the crowd were armed in steel. She admired that. She watched the bard make a brief return and retrieve her hat on the ground which had a few silver coins and pieces of undercooked broccoli.

"Lady Maya." Athalos leaned in with a plate of pasta he pulled his way while the owner was consumed by hate at the previous bard. "That seems like a good way to settle your plight. Coin, food, and a step towards the wrong path of revenge. What say you? Will it be the dirty dishes or the produce-armed mob?"

Maya was afraid. The biggest and only crowd she performed for was for ten five year old kids while she wore a costume of a tube of toothpaste in an amusement park. She sang the importance of brushing one's teeth. She was kicked, punched, and toothbrush-stabbed by the children and clotheslined by a security guard for fighting back.

But Maya knew the stakes were higher now. Around half the crowd, while thankfully without coconuts to throw, consisted of adventurers with steel weaponry. And that wasn't all. The thought of Io Hara She downed her cup and slammed it on the counter. "Watch me, Athalos."

Athalos tipped his hat. "I'll definitely try, my lady."

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