The Pearl Of Vynes - Chapter 12 Two Old Adventurers

Miles and Alice setup camp for the night with bedrolls laid out around the fire pit. Alice had the campfire going and was feeding the fire more logs, Alice setup a tripod above the flickering fire, hooking a pot in the middle filled with water and vegetables which begun to boil quickly.

“Do you have any dried vegetables Miles?” Alice asked, stirring the soup occasionally.

“Of course, I make sure to have a good stock of food whenever I travel” Miles said, rummaging and pulling a number of jars out from the back of the cart and laying it down near the fire. Miles reached under his ever present coat and pulled out a small gourd and started to drink from. From the first night Alice had spent with Miles, she had noticed very quickly that Miles had a drinking problem. It made it difficult to wake him the following morning, not including the snoring through the night. Alice had tried to confiscate the gourd but whenever she patted down Joel she couldn’t find the alcohol anywhere on his person despite watching him closely. Somehow, Miles could pull the gourd out of thin air whenever he had too much time to waste.
for visiting.

As the water started to boil down, the vegetable soup started to coagulate. Adding a few spices that Miles had hidden away added a welcome scent to the dish.

“You know, you’re almost as good as your mother when it comes to cooking” Miles said complimenting Alice.

“She passed a few recipes down to me. It is a woman’s job to cook” Alice responded as she focused on the meal.

“My how prepared you are, any man who asked you for your hand would be lucky” Miles said chuckling.

“If I had to choose, I want my adventures. Any girl can get married and settle down but there’s something out there I need to see” Alice responded, staying quiet as she cooked dinner. Joel leaned in, in interest of what Alice had to say

“What did you want to find?” Joel asked.

“I’m not sure, maybe one day I’ll find it” Alice replied

“You sound like me when I was younger Alice. Hope it doesn’t come back to bite you” Joel said, nudging her with his elbow as he smiled.

Alice nodded as she kept stirring the soup, hooking the pot off its holder with two sticks and placed it on the ground to cool. Alice stood up and walked over to the back of the cart, grabbing the wooden bowls and spoons. Coming back to the campfire she handed a bowl and spoon to Miles.

“We’re only a few days from Rift, so the weather will get a lot rougher from here on” Joel commented as he started to fill his bowl with dinner, slurping down the food hungrily.

From what Miles had told her, Rift was one of the coastal towns that had grown out as people kept staying for the seafood they hauled in. She remembered some of the fish she had seen in the ponds back in the village often small enough to fit in the palm of her hands, but Miles had said some of them could be bigger than the men who hauled them in. Fish big enough to feed several families for weeks; it wasn’t hard to think how Rift had become so large so quickly.

“How are your studies coming along?” Miles asked.

“I can write most of the letters you’ve given me, but the words don’t make sense” Alice lamented, a small parchment in her hands with a number of messy scribbles that Alice had been practicing on while they were driving.

“Ok, I’ll write a few here just so you can get the gist of when we transcribe it” Miles said grabbing a stick lying on the ground and started to draw the letters together. Looking down at the words Miles had drawn Alice stared thoughtfully.

“So what does it say?” Miles asked.

As Alice pondered she started forming the pronunciation.

“Where a-are t-t-the…stalls?” Alice said stuttering to forms the words in her mouth.

“Good job kid, the markets is where we’re going to mostly be on our trips for the moment. Being able to read is going to be key since most owners will try to rip off the unwary. If you can start writing down words yourself we might move on to more difficult things like mathematics” Miles informed Alice. Alice gave him a questioning look, looking confused at his suggestion.

“Mathematics?” Alice asked.

“Yes, it’s our way of figuring out this world operates. It’ll be invaluable to you being my apprentice. Ah, it has such a nice ring to it such a shame that I have to work you hard from the start” Miles said smiling.

“It’d be easier if you didn’t drink as much” Alice pointed out

“Drinking is a good way to past the time, it puts off that hangover you’ll have” Miles said

“Wait have you been drinking to solve your hangover?”

“Maybe”

“How long has this gone on for?”

“I’ve lost track now but I’m sure when it happens it just might kill me” Miles said, laughing as he took another swig from his flask he always hides. Alice started to clean up the campsite, packing away the cutlery into the cart. Alice came back and sat down on her bedroll facing Miles.

“So you’ve been on a few of these adventures with my dad before” Alice said, the crackle of the campfire was warming to her skin as the cold night was starting to set in.

“He was definitely an entertaining fellow, it makes travel easier when you have company” Miles responded, already laying down on his bedroll as he spoke to Alice.

“Can you tell me about them? You’re adventures” Alice asked curiously, she had never heard much about it from her father as it would always lament that Miles was trouble walking.

“Hmm, you’re father and I weren’t the best of people to tell stories about. For as much good as we did we would always somehow end up in more trouble than it was worth” Miles said, remembering fondly of those times

“Like what?” Alice said, her ears perking up at the potential of a story

“Well there was the one time we were paid off to steal the goblin king’s crown, gosh that brings back memories now. Your father was a strong person, he was ridiculous in regards to that as a normal person. But I was always nimbler” Miles said with a smile.

“We had managed to find the Goblin King’s lair. We had found it in the eastern woodlands, whole place was swarming with goblins and orcs. Of course this was when you were still young” Miles continued. Alice huffed and pouted at the words.

“I’m older than I look” Alice said feeling miffed.

“Of course, at fifteen I expect the wisdom of those years every day.” Miles said laughing.

“Where was I? Oh yes we had found the Goblin King’s hideout and we had a plan to sneak past the guards, as numerous as they were orcs are not very smart. So after a quick distraction we had their attention elsewhere and slipped past them inside the hideout.”

“Miles, what do orcs look like?” Alice asked, unable to fathom their features.

“Well orcs are pretty nasty creatures, easily able a to tear a man limb from limb. They used to be green but after so many years they had started to change. They’re now mostly black as they live underground all the time after a number of people banded together and basically purged them. They’re very smart and very vicious” Miles explained. Alice tried picturing them in her head as Miles continued his story.

“After sneaking past the orcs, we were quite lost inside the stronghold. There were patrols everywhere and it didn’t take long for us to get spotted. Whole place was crawling with orcs and goblins, very happy we would make their next meal”

Miles said with a laugh, but it definitely left a chill in Alice.

“We managed to escape them thanks to some of my handy smoke bombs, after running away we ended up in the rafters of the throne room. We could see the Goblin King, a nasty looking creature indeed, you could see sweat covering his body. I had a bit of a plan though, I had some left over rope with me that would be just enough for me to reach down. It definitely surprised your father when I handed him the rope and jumped off the ledge to make a grab for the crown of the King’s head. Good thing your father was pretty strong for sure I thought I had made a mistake as I dived down, but it was all fine thanks to him. After grabbing the crown he hauled me back up, it definitely drove the King crazy. After I was carried back into the rafters the whole place became alive with monsters everywhere, the cries and screams of rage were around us and we legged it to the entrance. As we thought we had made our way the Goblin King caught up with us, along with his retinue. As we ran out past the entrance I threw a couple bombs at the opening and it all caved in one go.”

“Who wanted the crown?” Alice asked as she started getting tired at the end of story, as exciting as it was.

“Some merchant over in the capital, a lot of the people there are odd collectors of rare items” Miles said losing interest in his story now.

“Do many people looks for rare items?” Alice questioned Miles.

“It’s a hobby for some, and a business for people like me. We should be getting some rest, it’s going to be a long trip tomorrow” Miles said as he rolled over and started to snore. As Alice turned over as well for the night she could see the stars starting to coming out, it definitely was going to be difficult but the excitement was overwhelming as much.