42 The Tavern of Jaeden Town

The tavern was lit with plenty of candles. The tables were all clean and set. The wooden floorboards were clear of any dirt.

Behind the counter, there was a white robed man with a hood where a bartender would usually be. His robes had blue circles around the shoulders. His face was covered by a white mask with black patterns. The mask only covered the top half of his face covering his nose and up. His mouth was shown in clear sight. His skin was pale white and wrinkled. His teeth were shaped as those of a shark. Each breath he took, heavy fog would come out of his mouth. The fog dropped to the floor and dissipated.

The man took a bottle of cheap wine from under the counter. He opened it with his pale wrinkly hands. His nails were overgrown and sharp as claws. He took the bottle and chugged it down. Much of the wine splashed to the ground.

When he was finished with the whole bottle, so much of the wine dripped from his mouth, but none would dirty his robes. Each drop that touched his robe would evaporate and become a part of the fog. Each piece of the fog would then proceed to float to the outside of the tavern as if it was alive.

The man sniffed and sniffed. He looked down at the wood flooring. With a flick, the wood floor froze over and shattered to thousands of pieces of ice. He leaned down and grabbed a chest. He took the chest and sat it upon the table. There was a steel lock, but in one instant, the lock froze over and shattered. He opened the box wiping away the shards of ice off of the table. The chest was filled with gold and silver coins. He assumed that it was the owner of the bar's insurance. In any case, it was now property of the white robed man.

His long nail rubbed over the coins. He grabbed one feeling it up.

The man stared into the gold coin and said, "Money has always been a powerful object. It can motivate people to do great things like architecture, production of good, and maintaining wars. It can make me more powerful than I already am. An empire cannot be built upon nothing. It must be built upon the bodies of people. More and more bodies need to be stacked to rebuild my empire. And gold will motivate them to throw themselves onto the pile."

He looked around the empty tavern.

"More bodies. More bodies," he repeated.

He put the gold coin back in the chest.

He sniffed, again.

He smelled new visitors to his new kingdom of mist. With his sense of smell, he could determine what it was if he has smelled it before.

He took one long sniff into the air.

"I haven't smelled this scent for a long time. So, there are still some left."