Isa opened her mouth and promptly closed it. Start from the beginning? Where’s that? When’s that?

“It’s a really long story, so I’ll start with - damn, it was this morning when-- No wonder we’re hungry.” She turned to Alice. “Babe, eat.” She stroked Alice’s blonde hair, but Alice didn’t look up from her writing.

That’s fine, Isa thought to herself. This is a lot to process, and if Alice needs to write it out, that’s fine. To Lund she said, “Alice and I were in a wooded area on our plane this morning….”

When she got to the part about giving first aid to Ysel, Isa said, “Wait a minute - she’s a goddess. She didn’t need my help. That was a setup!”

“Who’s a goddess?” asked Lund. “You’re cavorting with deities now? Not sure that’s a good idea, Isa.” He looked at the ceiling nervously.

“Have you heard of Lockwood?”

“No, should I?”

“Figures. ‘Obscure goddess takes interest in outlander.’ Great headline. So this Ysel, she’s the ‘Lady of Lockwood,’and it’s her fault I’m back here - that we’re back here. They thought Alice was me. Stupid, really.”

“What?” Alice looked up from her notebook and blinked.

“I was telling Lund how we ended up here.” Isa smiled at Alice. “What have you been up to over there?”

“Um, this bracelet….” Alice held up the copper bracelet on her left wrist. “It’s magic.”

Lund took a step back.”What do you mean, magic?”

“I just get the feeling that if I stroke the design….” Alice ran her middle finger over the engraved crow. “.... a real crow--”

A jet black crow slowly formed in the space above the bracelet. After about 5 seconds, it fluttered its wings once, as if to test them and hopped on Alice’s shoulder.

“.... will appear,” Alice finished.

“That’s definitely magic,” said Isa.

Lund had visibly relaxed. “I don’t mind familiars,” he said. “They don’t poop or eat, and they are generally well behaved, except this weasel one time--”

“Wait - familiar?” Isa looked from Lund to Alice. “Like a witch’s familiar? But you’re a wizard.”

“Wizards have a spell for that,” said Alice. “And when I put the bracelet on, I got this funny feeling.” She turned to face Isa. “You know that feeling like you know that you’re supposed to do something, but you can’t remember what it is? Like, you’re at the store and you know there’s something that you’re forgetting to buy, but you have no idea what it is? That’s what I felt when I put on the bracelet. And it took me a while to figure out that I should look at my spellbook.”

The crow shifted on Alice’s shoulder, adjusted one wing, and then sat down.

“OK,” said Isa. “We have a crow. What does it do? Like, what’s the point?”

Alice reached up and stroked the bird’s side. “What’s the point of anything, Isa? What a thing to say! To answer your rude question, I don’t know yet. But if it’s a spell, it must be useful. And maybe, if you promise not to be rude to Peck, I’ll explain it all to you.”

“Peck? You named him already?”

“It’s not a he - or a she. It’s a spirit, and it’s name is Peck.”

Lund had been watching the exchange. “Don’t see many familiars around here. Don’t know why.” He held his finger near Alice’s shoulder. “But I always liked crows.”

Peck walked on to Lund’s finger and stretched out its wings. With one black eye, it seemed to look at Isa. “Me too,” said Isa. “Really. Got a feeder and everything.”

The front door opened, and Isa turned quickly toward it, hoping to see Mery. Instead a group of three travelers walked in. Lund put Peck beside Alice’s shoulder. “I got customers! You stay here,” he said. The crow dutifully moved to Alice’s shoulder.

“Is it just me,” Isa watched Lund as he hurried to the kitchen, “or does he seem over the moon about having customers?”

Alice shrugged. “I don’t know him well enough. What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking,” Isa said slowly, “that wyvern has really screwed Lund over. I think business is really hurting, maybe.”

Lund moved past them with a pitcher of beer for the table of travelers. They both watched as he talked to the group. “I’m going to sit and look at my spells,” said Alice. “Maybe you and your friend need some privacy.”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s good. Thanks, babe.” Isa watched Lund as he moved back to the kitchen.

Alice put her bag at a booth, and Peck cawed and took flight. It landed on the back of the booth.

Isa gave them both a little wave. “I’ll join you, um, soon. ’Cause I’ll need to look at my spells, too. Lund’s a great fighter, has this greatsword that’s like….” Isa stretched her arms out, almost spilling her beer. “It’s big.”

“What are you talking about?” Lund was back at the bar.

“Your greatsword, actually.” Isa ignored Lund’s puzzled look. “So, this wyvern, it’s doing a number on you, huh?”

“You mean a spell? They’re not magical creatures.”

“I mean like it ruining business. It’s a side effect of the wyvern taking up residence.”

Lund waved his hand dismissively. “I’m doing fine. Really.”

Isa shifted around to face the nearly empty tavern, resting her elbows on the bar. “Yeah?”

“It’s early yet.”

“You telling me the truth?” She turned back to face her friend. “I know what it’s like to live paycheck to paycheck.”

“I don’t know what that means,” he said. But he leaned forward, his arms on the bar. “Does it mean wondering how you’re gonna pay the rent? Because--”

“I knew it!” Isa slapped the bar with her hand. “Oh, sorry. Look, we’ll help with the wyvern. We don’t need the gold.”

“Yes, you do,” Lund said with a grimace.

“Not as much as you.” She leaned over the bar. “Not to be a dick, but do you even have enough for the reward?”

He shook his head. “I figured I can do trade or something. The whole town is hurting. It’s like we’re cursed or something. Before the wyvern, we had bad rains. The river overflowed its banks. That hasn’t happened in, oh, years. Years and years.”

Trade? When was he going to mention that? “You should come on this quest with us.” Isa blurted out. “Leave the wyvern to someone else.”

“I can’t run away from this problem, Isa. Besides, who’s gonna take on the wyvern? Gimble? Anne?”

“This quest, it pays good money,” she said. “And Ysel, she’s a goddess. For real. And if Bywater’s cursed, well maybe she can lift it or combat it or whatever. She is a deity.”

“Help me with the wyvern, and we can talk.”

“Deal.” Isa took a swig of beer. “This is going to be so great. We’ll get Mery, and then we can--”

“How much?”

“How much what?” She knew exactly what Lund was asking, but she couldn’t remember how much money Ysel had offered. She grabbed her notebook. “Like a thousand gold, something like that.” She flipped through the pages.

“No. No way.” Lund shook his head. “A thousand gold for--”

“500 gold.” Isa looked up. “And an elvencraft weapon. And,” she held up one finger, “the favor of the Lady of Lockwood.”

“Right.” Lund nodded. “‘The Lady.’”

“You don’t believe me!”

“I do. I do. I mean. Look at you. All kitted out in elven armor. And,” he pointed at Alice and Peck, “your girlfriend there is some kind of nature wizard.” He shook his head. “Something happened to you.”

“That,” Isa picked up her glass, “is a good way to describe it. Ysel happened to me.”

“I can’t deny - something’s gotta change.” Lund looked at the door of the tavern which had remained closed the entire time they’d been talking. “Half a dozen customers a day isn’t going to pay the bills.” Just then the group of travelers hailed Lund. “You go sit with your girl. I’ll bring you another round.”

Isa nodded and crossed to the booth. Alice looked up from her book. “Ysel said I had the power of nature. Is that like weather, do you think? Or poison or maybe animals….?”

Isa shrugged. “You tell me. I only have a few spells. Did you see how my club glowed all silvery and green? That’s a spell. A cantrip, so that’s cool, right. Just casting and casting.”

“My frostbite - that’s a cantrip. Pretty handy to just spam that.” She ran a finger down a page of her notebook. “I’ve got some outright offensive spells, a few defensive - mage armor, Della’s favorite - and then a couple of manipulation spells. Charm person - has Felix ever gotten that spell to work?”

“I’ve seen it work for real, and it was a little frightening,” Isa said, remembering when Mery cast the spell on the young thief, Wat.

“In the moments of battle, I didn’t have time to truly think ‘Holy shit, I’m using magic!’ But now,” Alice gestured at the books in front of her, “holy shit! We’re using magic!’

“The notebook, it’s interactive, I guess you’d say. Swipe your finger on a spell, and it will write out more information. Try it. I’m not explaining it very well.”

Alice wiped her finger across the words Absorb Elements and gasped as words appeared. She said, “It’s a reaction! If someone hits me with frostbite, I can basically hold the cold element in my dagger and then use it on a dagger attack. The dagger would do some frosty damage to my enemy, and what’s left hits me.”

“So it doesn’t absorb it forever.”

“No,” Alice shook her head. “But that’s pretty cool - I can siphon some off and turn it back on them. I need to practice with that dagger!”

“What else you got?” Isa tried to read upside down. “Anything for a wyvern? What is a wyvern anyway?”

“They’re like dragons, if I’m remembering right. Like a dragon cousin or something. They have a lot of hit points, so I can see why Lund.... Listen to me! ‘Hit points.’ I assume that they are very stout and hearty and hard to kill. In the game, they have a lot of hit points.” Alice laid her arms across the open books and took Isa’s hands. “Do you really think this is real? Is it even possible that tabletop games are based on this world?”

“Of course it’s real - we’re here, aren’t we?”

“I guess so.” Alice pulled her arms back and looked down at the book. “I should act like it’s real.” She touched her shoulder where the gnoll’s spear had hit her. “Which leads me back to the wyvern. If it has a lot of hit points in the game, that would - at least partially - be due to a good constitution. So no disease spells, no blindness or anything.” She turned the page on her spellbook. “Maybe this acid arrow.” She rubbed her finger on the page. “It’s got a 90 foot range. Yeah, I’m going to prepare this instead of blindness. So…..” she bent her face closer to the book.

Peck hopped down and stood beside the spellbook. “Raawk,” it said.

“In the morning,” Alice went on, ‘I need a few minutes to just look over the spells. Like how you review right before the test.”

“If you’re a genius like Alice. If you’re a mere mortal like Isa, you’ve spent the last 3 days studying and trying to prep for the test, hoping for a solid B.” Isa looked down at her own spell list in her notebook. “So I have this spell called thaumaturgy. It says, Demonstrate your devotion to the Lady of Lockwood by performing a small wonder like making a sound originate up to 30 feet from you or making your eyes glow bright green for a minute. So, let’s say Peck is off to the left. He can squawk--”

“It. Peck’s not a he.” Alice said

“Yeah but it’s just easier to--”

“Details matter, babe, especially in magic.”

Isa suppressed a sigh and nodded. “Peck can squawk off to the left, and I make a squawk to the right, using thaumaturgy, and the enemy will think they are surrounded!”

Alice raised one eyebrow. “That’s clever. Peck, you up for that?”

“Raawk.” The crow rubbed its beak against Alice’s spellbook.

“The other neat spell that Ysel gave me is called bane. Listen to this: The curse of the Lady descends on up to 3 of your enemies, making their lives harder for 60 seconds. They won’t wield their weapons as accurately; they won’t dodge your blows as deftly. I can also befriend animals….” Isa went silent as she finished reading the spell. “Well, shit, I can try to anyway - it says they have to be dumb.” She leaned back and pushed her notebook away from her. “Isa Chamberlin - friend of dumb animals.”

Alice started to laugh. “How do you know what animals you can charm? Is there a list somewhere?”

“I’ll have to ask Ysel why she gave me this dumb-ass spell,” said Isa.

“Can you change your spells, too?” asked Alice. “That would be interesting to know. Felix could change his spells. But that’s just a game. You, on the other hand, had a goddess bestow magic on you. Think about that, honey. A motherfucking goddess gave you magical abilities.”

“A motherfucking goddess,” Isa repeated. “Woo!” she raised her arms in the air. “Lockwood!”

Alice laughed again. “Team Lockwood.”

“That’s us, huh? ‘Team Lockwood.’”

The two women nodded solemnly at each other and then broke into smiles.