Free Samples

Fifteen minutes or so after we left the squelching of the large slime behind we slowed to a stop and finally detached Kenna from the end of my staff.

“Phew!” the little Corvum exclaimed once she’d cleared herself of the worst of the slime. “Good job you lot came long when you did. I’d been stuck to that wall for, well, at least a day.”

Kenna seemed cheerier than I would have expected. With her wings free she began preening her matted feathers clean. The tunnel echoed with the sound of gobs of slime splattering onto the floor.

“What were you doing here alone in such a dangerous place?” I demanded.

“Collecting samples, of course,” said Kenna.

She produced a glass vial from her pocket and bent over. Then she scooped the remains of the slime back off the tunnel floor and into the vial.

“Not as fresh as it could be,” Kenna said. “Still, it should be good research material, don’t you think?”

“Err, yes?”

Kenna laughed.

“You sound just like my boss, Gert! He said we wouldn’t get any further in our project unless we got our hands on some live samples. And so here I am: collecting samples!”

I felt a bit dizzy. Like this lively little Corvum was flying circles round me.

“Um—” I began.

“There you go again!” chirped Kenna. “Umming and erring. Classic Gert!”

“What?”

“That too,” said Kenna. “Anyway, thank you for helping me out. We should probably go somewhere safe to rest. Your friend doesn’t look too peachy.”

We looked at Olive, battered and bruised, curled up in Crispin’s pot.

“She’s breathing, at least,” I said.

Kenna led us to a central cavern in the middle of the doughnut-shaped cave system where we could rest for the night. Crispin cooked a meal and we made Olive as comfortable as we could, hoping that a good night’s sleep was all she needed to overcome the trials of the day.

---

In the morning I roused the party, crowing to welcome the dawn of another day. It’s hard to explain how I could sense the dawn, even from deep underground, but I felt it. I could always tell.

Crispin summoned a magical feast of bear shanks, and winked knowingly at me as he wrapped them up for later. For breakfast he prepared a line of nuts for me which I relished: it was really the only way to start a day. Thankfully Olive was up and about again to join us.

“What do you think?” I whispered to Crispin while Olive chatted excitedly with Kenna.

“Well, this morning I was thinking about whether Birdfolk—”

“About Olive.”

“Oh.” Crispin lowered his voice. “She’s nice and all, but not really my—”

“About her recovery.”

“It’s going well?”

At that moment, Olive scurried over to us.

“Did you know Kenna’s boss will pay actual gold for slime samples?” she squeaked. “I think we should get some.”

“Alright,” I said. “As long as you’re careful.”

---

Five minutes later, I was standing anxiously behind a boulder watching Olive tiptoe toward a lone slime. As I had instructed, she threw a stone across the cave floor as a distraction. The creature quivered and turned toward the noise. Then, very much not as I instructed, Olive inexplicably tripped and fell onto the back of the slime.

“Why do I even try?” I muttered.

“Quick,” said Crispin. “Now’s our chance!”

Never one to miss an opportunity, Crispin trundled in and took two more samples from the slime while it grappled with Olive. I grabbed Olive and dragged her and the slime apart to reveal Olive holding the third slime sample victoriously aloft.

“Now that’s what I call teamwork!” Kenna cheered from the sidelines.

---

The journey back to the Winnowing Reach was safe but slow. By the time we arrived it was already evening. The lamps were lit and the bustle of the little village looked warm and welcoming after spending a night in the Mokkden Caverns.

“Home, sweet home,” said Kenna, somehow still in excellent spirits. “Come on, I’ll take you to meet the boss.”

Kenna led us to the granary, and then up a rickety wooden staircase fixed to the outside wall. She pushed open the door without knocking and waved us into a tiny but sophisticated laboratory. There were several workbenches crammed inside, cluttered with pencils and paper notes and stoppered glass vials. On one side, a violent pink liquid in a boiling flask bubbled theatrically.

“Ooh,” said Crispin and reached out his paw.

“Don’t,” I said.

At that, a spiny little Hedge bumbled out from behind a workbench and greeted us with a gasp of surprise. His eyes were impossibly large, magnified by two thick glass lenses, and he himself was so small he needed to stand on a stool just to reach every table. He scurried backwards a little as if he thought we were going to steal his lunch money.

“Evening, boss,” said Kenna. She grinned brightly. “Did you miss me?”

“Umm— err— salutations and all that,” Gert stammered and then gasped again. “You were absent?”

“We rescued your assistant from the Mokkden Caverns,” I said. “She had a lucky escape. You should know better than to send her somewhere so dangerous, all alone.”

“I did?” Gert said in amazement. “Then umm, who have I been talking to—?”

“Hey,” said Kenna sharply. “Gert didn’t send me. I decided to go all on my own!”

“That doesn’t make it any better,” I sighed.

“Does your, err, presence imply the acquisition of the previously requested material?”

Olive and Crispin presented the slime samples with some elaborate ceremony. It included a lot of bowing, in turn and then in unison. They must have discussed it ahead of time.

“Err— super!” said Gert.

“A palindrome,” noted Crispin.

“What?”

“Classic Gert,” Kenna giggled.

“Help yourself to umm, a reward, I suppose,” said Gert. “I don’t have gold, but, err— you may take something of equivalent value.”

The little Hedge scientist collected the bottles and immediately set to work separating and labeling the samples. Olive chose some bottles of dead slime and Crispin and I unearthed a worn set of tinkering tools.

“Are these a fair trade?” I asked Gert’s back. “Gert?”

“Don’t even bother,” Kenna laughed. “You won’t get an answer out of him when he’s working. Better to ask forgiveness than permission.”

I left the tiny laboratory with a vague sense of unease. That was the sort of advice that got you stuck to a cave wall and eaten by slimes.

---

“I’ll get the first round,” said Kenna as we sat down at the bar in the Wrangler’s Rest.

“Thank you,” I replied. “That’s very generous.”

“It’s the least I can do for the friends who saved my life!”

“Don’t worry about it, Kenna,” said the bulky Strig barman. “That Crispin has opened a tab.”

I blinked.

“Oh alright,” said Kenna. “If that’s easier.”

I turned to Olive for help, but she wasn’t there. I spotted her across the other side of the tavern talking to a group of musicians. Somehow she already had a drink in her hand. When I turned back, Crispin had begun to monopolise the bartender.

“Do you have any broken cookware?”

“Pardon?”

“Anything metal would do,” said Crispin. “It’s for a project I have just thought of.”

“I’ll have a look in the back,” said the barman and left, disappointing a queue of customers.

“Plume,” Crispin continued. “Can I borrow that stick you’re always swinging about?”

“My quarterstaff?”

“If that’s what you call it,” said Crispin.

“Am I going to get it back?”

“Sort of,” said Crispin. “In a sense.”

“Then no,” I said and walked off to watch Olive’s performance.

In the intervening minutes, Olive had assembled a quartet out of the most-promising other musicians, and the patrons of the Wrangler’s Rest were grooving along to a thumping rhythmic bass. Another Jerbeen musician was clinking part-filled bottles with a pair of sticks.

Olive had her back to the audience and the crowd watched in rapt attention as she dramatically produced something new from her pack. As the band brought the music to a crescendo, she held the instrument up in the air and the crowd clapped politely.

“A pan flute?” I murmured.

Breathy notes rushed through the tavern, followed by soaring scales and polka dot staccato rushes. I found myself lost in the melody, slipping in and out of awareness, forgetting my sense of self and just letting go of all the worries that had crowded my mind for the past few days.

It was life-changing: in my opinion, a new chapter in music history was written that day.

So, it was a surprise when Crispin tapped my shoulder and finally jolted me back to my senses. Kenna stood just behind him and nudged him forward with a conspiratorial wink.

“What?”

Kenna giggled.

“I would like to ask your forgiveness,” said Crispin and bowed.

“What.” I felt my good mood snap like a broken lute string. “Crispin, what did you—?”

Crispin held out my quarterstaff. I took it from him in a daze.

Bound to the top of it was a broken frying pan, held on with a mixture of twine and a glistening substance that I could only assume was slime. The pan itself had been cut haphazardly into a jagged edge so that the whole thing resembled an—

“An axe?” I managed.

I hefted the staff and tested the weight. It felt strange; heavy but good. The balance was somehow just right.

“Well,” said Crispin. “I call it ‘Crispin’s Mighty Great Pan’.”

“I told you he’d like it,” said Kenna with a knowing smile.

I couldn’t quite believe it. But I did.