1

“Now, now young lady,” Alabaster spoke to the mysterious girl kindly. “We all know Crest is a scary boy. Come. Have a seat with us. He won’t bite.”

The mysterious girl looked around, timid. Still, people watched. Unwilling to move, she started to step backward as if she were a shy child. A gasp escaped her as she stepped back. Something had gripped her shoulder. Cold and boney. Not hesitating, she looked behind her. It was the girl who she had encountered upstairs.

“Names Borka,” she said sweetly. “Welcome to the Drunken Tankard.”

“Hey Lou,” Alabaster beckoned his attention. “You think closing shop would be a good idea right about now? Might want to keep this situation private.”

Lou snapped his fingers. “Sounds like a marvelous idea. Hey Dorsea!” He exclaimed, garnering the young waitress’s attention from across the counter.

“Yes sir, boss sir?” She stood with her hands on her hips.

“Get em’ out of here.”

Turning around she shouted out loud. Brash and tempestuous as an orc of her breed could be. “LISTEN UP FOLKS! SERVICE IS DONE FOR THE NIGHT! GET THE HELL OUT OF MY SIGHT!"

Rumblings and ramblings filled the air as customers left, some scoffed their dinner down as quickly as possible before Dorsea shot them a glare.

Now all that remained inside the Drunken Tankard were its employees and one strange guest.

2

Whereas Alabaster had been sitting to the left of Crest, the mysterious girl sat in the seat right of where Crest had been sitting. Lou leaned over the counter and Borka and Dorsea pulled up chairs to the bar. Everyone was all ears regarding their new ‘friend’.

Off the floor, Crest slowly climbed into his stool. As he did the mysterious girl blushed. “I’m so….so sorry. You’re not…. hurt, are you?”

Brushing her off, Crest held his head. “I’m fine don’t worry about me. What about you?”

Confused, she poked her lips with her finger. “Me? Why wouldn’t I be fine?”

Interjecting, Borka added her two cents. “Well when you saw me, you ran out of the room screaming.”

“And from what Crest tells us, you were in the captivity of slavers.” Dorsea went on to say.

“And not to mention,” Alabaster pointed at his eye to hers. “You’ve got quite the scar on your face. However, did you come to acquire something like that?”

The girl rubbed her scarred eye, a small frown covering her face. Truthfully, if she could tell them, she would. “I don’t know….in fact I don’t remember much of anything.”

Borka and Dorsea looked at each other with questioning faces. The boys looked equally confused. Lou held his hand out as if he were looking for a handout or some cash. “When you say you don’t remember anything…….you mean nothing?”

She shook her head vigorously. “Nuh uh, nothing.”

Putting a pondering finger in his mouth, Crest bit on his fingernail. Trauma was a hell of a thing, but it sounded like she hadn’t just experienced any kind. The girl could have legit had a nasty head case, and she would have been none the wiser. He was hesitant to ask, but he went further. “So you mean you don’t even know your name?”

“Hmm,” she hummed for a moment, her eyes wandering around the room. “Honestly, no.” She shook her head again. Her memories, if there, weren’t coming to her. Suddenly as she was pondering, she let out a loud gasp. “WAIT A MINUTE! I THOUGHT OF SOMETHING!”

“Well spit it out,” commanded Alabaster.

“It isn’t my name though. No, it’s something else. I remember the last time I was awake I was trapped in a cage with some other people. We were in a garden or courtyard or something. I remember two men took me from there and brought out this big machine and then after that……nothing.”

Crest crossed his arms. “That must have been just a little while ago. Those must have been the same slavers I rescued you from.”

The girl titled her head in a curious fashion. “You rescued me?”

Patting him on the back, Alabaster congratulated Crest. “My young friend here is always helping people with this and that. But it was real luck that he found you, or else you would have been a goner.”

“You were in an extraction chamber. They’re devices for harnessing the magic of holy stone users.” Crest went on to say.

Feeling particularly dizzy from all the peculiar terms, the mysterious girl shook her head. “They were harvesting me for a what?”

Prepared to explain even this, Crest moved his hands about like a confused teacher. “Holy stones are magic stones that, once digested, alter a person’s central nervous system allowing them to perform magic. A holy stone doesn’t necessarily grant you powers, but grants you access to an attribute that is normally inaccessible.”

The mysterious girl scrunched her face. “People eat stones?” She questioned looking perplexed. “Isn’t that a little dangerous?”

“If you were being harvested, you’re obviously a holy stone user yourself,” Crest told her the truth. “You might have forgotten due to your clear case of amnesia.” Crest knocked on her skull like a closed door. “But there is a legend. Most people speculate that the first guy who ever ate a holy stone was a poor man and was looking for something to eat. That’s when he came across a colorful rock that looked delicious, and he decided that he would swallow it. Voila, he gained magic powers. They say that, and all subsequent holy stones came from the gods.”

Magic user, huh? That’s what those two guys’ must have wanted. And she was alive, because of this man. She held her head low. “So …. I’m a magic user. Supposedly I have some sort of power in me, yet I’ve forgotten how to use it.” She scratched her head and laughed. “I must be stupid, huh?”

“Not as stupid as the baboon,” Dorsea interjected, a twinge of malice in her tone.

“No young lady,” Lou spoke up. “You’re not stupid. You just can’t remember who you are. You have to start again, from the basics. You have to remember your signature.”

“My signature?” She raised an eyebrow.

Crest put his hand under his chin and blew a hot breath. He was ready to give the girl another lecture in magic. “A signature is the magic or ability that you specialize in. Unlike normal magic, its use doesn’t require an incantation. When I gained my holy stone two years ago, I not only was granted the power to use magic, but I obtained the ability to cloak myself in darkness. That form you saw earlier...” Crest waved his hand in front of his face and in what seemed like a split second, he had transformed into his other self again. “This. This is my signature. In this form, the darkness acts as armor. I also gain the ability to run faster and punch harder than before.”

Whistling, she gave him a round of applause. “Wow. You’re something else, Mr. Beast. You got to tell me, who are you guys anyway?”

“Oh,” He gripped his neck. “Well,” he began to point to everyone. “We got Lou here, he’s the owner of the place and the bartender. Then we got Alabaster, the former bouncer and esteemed traveler. After that we got Borka, she’s a sweetheart of a waitress. Then we got fuckin’ numb nuts over there.”

“Care to say that again you baboon!” Dorsea barked viciously..

Borka patted her on the back to comfort her. “There, there.” She said calmly, but gritting her teeth like they were diamonds.

It was an impressive gang. A funny gang even. The mysterious newcomer chuckled in her hand. She felt comfortable, at ease even. Glad to have survived her encounter with the slavers, she was even more glad to be in the presence of such interesting people. She might not have had her memories or known who her family or where she had come from, but that was fine, that was a-okay. She had just made new friends. She smiled at the strange man who had presumably saved her life. “You look like the most interesting. Who are you?” She said directly to him.

Crest’s usual argument with Dorsea was put on hold. This girl wanted to know who he was? Not only that but she was more interested in him than the others. Normally he didn’t stroke his own ego…..well that wasn’t entirely true, but it was a rare occasion when he did. Putting his hands on his hips, he smiled. “Well, I’m nobody in particular. But I’m often called the Black Knight or the Rogue Shadow, I’m Crest Evermore and I’m the bouncer of this tavern and a professional hunter. So basically, I beat up bad guys, and kill monsters.”

Getting the idea, she nodded her head. It was then, that for the first time, she took notice of the giant sword on Crest’s back. He must have been a great warrior, who had slain countless men before. She looked on him with awe and wonder. This guy was not only fearsome looking, but he also seemed to be deadly. She wouldn’t have wanted to get on his bad side, but she was also admittedly captivated. “So that sword on your back,” she pointed out. “You kill people with that? You must have killed those two guys, huh?”

Gritting his teeth, he muttered. “Well not exactly.” He seemed almost embarrassed to say it. “And by that, I mean……no. No I didn’t. I just kill monsters.”

“Oh…. that’s lame.”

“L-Lame!?”

No longer impressed by the swordsman, she looked on him with the cruelest, deadpan stare. She thought he was cool at first. She thought he could take care of business. Now he just looked like some goofball with a blade too heavy for a normal person to carry around. “Yep,” she went on to say. “What’s the use of a sword if you can’t kill people?”

“I still use it!” He exclaimed. “I just….I just don’t kill them is all. I hand em’ over to Leo.” Gulping, his voice went from as loud as a lion to as meek as a mouse.

“Who’s Leo?”

“A friend of mine and an enforcer. Enforcers are people who align themselves with the king, but don’t identify as soldiers. The job entails beating up people and killing monsters.”

“So essentially the same as you?” She raised an eyebrow.

“Well I wouldn’t say that. Hunters and enforcers have their differences to be sure.” What he really wanted to say, was that they were nothing alike.

The mysterious girl breathed a heavy sigh. “You guys all have your roles and missions, but I have nothing of my own. And if I did, I can’t remember it.” Holding a fist up to her chin, she pouted. “I wish I could remember who I was.”

“Well, don’t fret now,” Broka said. “Maybe there’s a hint.”

“A hint?”

“You know. A clue that points you in the right direction. Something that tells us where you really belong. Did those guys say anything to you while they held you hostage? Did they ever have any conversations as to where you might have come from?”

Pondering the thought for a moment, the mysterious girl held a finger to her lip. After hesitating she had an ‘aha’ moment. She slammed her fist in her palm. “I’m not sure if it’s much of a clue, but I do remember that they kept calling me an angel. And that I’d sell really well.”

Raising his eyebrow, Crest took a sip of his beer. “Don’t angels normally have wings?” He shook his head while rolling the beer around in his mouth. “You don’t have wings.”

Standing up, Borka walked over to the mysterious girl. “Actually…..” She scratched her head as she lifted the dress of the girl. On the girl’s back was the world’s tiniest wings. Both were twitching unconsciously. “I found these when I was dressing her.”

Crest spit out his drink. “Holy shit.” He began to laugh and point. “That’s hilarious.”

Turning red, the mysterious girl pulled her dress out of Borka’s grip. She grinded her teeth. “You…..idiot." Balling her hand up, she punched Crest below the abdomen. He cried out with a giant ‘oof’. The girl twisted her lips. “Sorry…not sorry.”

“Anyway,” Borka sat back down. “It isn’t much of a clue, but it’s something. It tells us either one or both of your parents were angels. There aren’t many of those in Beros or any of the cities or towns close by.”

Smiling out of his pain, Crest gave the girl a thumbs up. “An angel, huh? I’ve never met one of those. You must be a special kind of gal.”

“I don’t feel very special,” she retorted.

“I have to disagree,” said Alabaster. “Angels are very special.”

The mysterious girl’s face lit up. “Oh, why’s that?”

Crest shook his hands. “No, no don’t ask him—”

“I’ve been to Angel City on an island on the Dragtel continent, called Teros. They have the most beautiful women. I bed at least a hundred! They’re extremely special.” He laughed heartily, while Crest’s head sunk into his palm.

“Dammit, you just had to ask.”

“Angel City?” the mysterious girl questioned looking puzzled.

Alabaster stroked his beard for a moment, as if he were pondering something. Suddenly he snapped his fingers. “Yes….yes……ANGEL CITY THAT’S IT!”

“What’s it?” Lou questioned.

“Crest,” Alabaster placed his hand on Crest’s shoulder. “You’ve always wanted to travel right?”

Snorting, Crest rubbed his nose. “Well, yes, but I don’t see what that has to do with—”

Interrupting him, he continued. “Angel City is beautiful I tell you. It’s a place of wonderment and joy, a real heaven on earth. In Angel City, there’s a magic orb that rests within the center of a lake. That orb is powerful, with infinite knowledge. It shows a person the thing they most want to know. Crest you could take the girl there and show her, her memories. It's likelier to yield results than looking for parents who might not be alive.”

Crest laughed as if something were funny. Really? Alabaster had to be kidding. “What? Surely you’re joking. I’ve never even heard of Angel City let alone know if this orb exists or not. Besides, I barely know this girl.”

“Crest,” Alabaster said in a tone that sounded completely serious. “You’re not getting any younger. This is a perfect excuse to get away from here. Every man starts his journey at some point. Start now while you can.”

“Dude.” A putrid look covered his face, he pushed Alabaster’s hand off him. “That’s not going to happen. I’m not taking this girl a hundred miles away to get her memories back. That’s way too much eff—” Crest’s eyes met with the mysterious girl’s one. It was sparkling.

“Would you take me to Angel City, please? Pretty please?” Her voice sounded heavenly.

“No, I was just saying I wouldn’t…”

“…..but why not?.”

“I might have saved you, but that doesn’t mean I know you well enough to break my back for you like that.”

Her face twisted in a cutthroat stare. “Didn’t this guy just say you’ve always wanted to travel? Why not now?”

Slamming his hand down on the counter, Crest felt compelled to argue, rather than be agreeable. “Look lady, I have a job here. I can’t just go abandoning it. I have a duty to these people. Borka, Lou, and even fuckin’ numb nuts over there. So, I can’t take you to a place I’m not even familiar with, just so you can go get your silly memories back. Live in the present instead of the past.”

Dorsea didn’t jump at his comment this time, but the mysterious girl did. “Please, If you would just take me to Angel City, I could learn who I am and then I’d be out of your hair. I don’t know how to get there, and clearly I’m too weak to do it on my own.”

“Well, you’ll have to do it on your own. That’s too far for me to travel. I. have. a. job.”

“Do you though?” Dorsea interjected. “You mostly sit around here moping all the time. I say this is a good opportunity to do what you’ve been planning to do all along. Me, Lou and Borka are really the ones running the place. You just beat up mooks. Are you really that closely associated with what our business is about?”

Crest snarled.

“It’s time Crest,” added Alabaster. “The whole world is waiting for you. Step out for once like I did, like your family did. This is what you’ve always wanted. I say take the girl with you and never come back.”

“Alabaster, would you quit it already!” Crest exclaimed. “You’re putting ideas in the noobie’s head. We literally just met."

"So?” The mysterious girl pouted with a stern look. Her face softened after a few seconds. “We may have just met. But I trust you with my life. I think you’re a good person. You could have chosen to ignore me, or do something just as bad as those slavers. But you brought me here…..in the company of other good people, like Mr.Alabaster. You’re not a monster like those two guys.”

Crest paused. He wasn’t a monster? He shook his head. He didn’t think too much on the comment, though the sentiment did make him feel sappy. “Look, these people need me. I won’t leave them behind! NEVER!”

There was a moment’s silence. Crest was on edge. He still felt obligated to his crew. And no one knew how heavy his burden was than Borka. Her face was remorseful. She saw the bitterness in Crest’s eyes. She knew that Crest had always wanted to go see the world, to see Al Spar Munda, but had never given himself the chance to leave. He was stuck at the Drunken Tankard, while his father and brother were beyond his grasp, and he depressingly wasted away. She was the one who least wanted him to leave, she had feelings for him, but she was also the one who most wanted to see him happy. Maybe Alabaster was right….maybe he did need to go.

Crest spent many of his days cooped up in the tavern. He rarely ever left and when he did, It was for something small. The tavern was both his job and home, it wasn’t healthy. Even if she was envious of the girl, even Borka could see that Crest was a shut in, who couldn’t help but cling desperately to his crew like a bottle of mother’s milk.

Borka regrettably whispered. “Just go.”

“What?” Crest didn’t quite hear her. But he was unsure if he wanted to hear what she said.

“I said ‘just go’. Why not? Why turn her down? If you’re ever going to become an adventurer, if you’re ever going to reach Al Spar Munda, you have to take steps. This could be the start of a new adventure and you’re declining?”

“Why wouldn’t I decline?” Crest asked desperately. “It’s crazy. Is this how you guys really feel? You would be okay if I left with a complete stranger, just to get rid of me?”

“YES!” The echoes of Crest’s coworkers filled his ears. He flinched.

“But….But why?” He asked.

“You’re a sad sap baboon,” Dorsea said. “Just this morning you were drinking your cares away. You were sad again, weren’t you?”

“Well….” Crest scratched his head. “I mean…”

“And you’re jealous of Alabaster too….aren’t you Crest? Even your long gone brother and father.” Borka added.

That wasn’t something Crest would admit so easily. But he did consider it was possible that he was just a tiny bit jealous of them. Ignoring the comment, he stood firm. “Look I just want to travel on my own terms. When I’m ready.”

“Well,, when will you be ready Crest?” She questioned. “There’ll always be a place for you here, with us……with me. So don’t wait anymore, do what you promised yourself. Be a man by leaving us. Go find them. Make a name for yourself. Make us proud to know you.”

“Them….?” The mysterious girl muttered. “Mr. Crest, don’t tell me there’s more to you wanting to travel than just a good time. You wouldn’t happen to be looking for some of your old gal pals would you?”

“No,” Crest huffed. He disliked having to get personal with a person he just met. But he told her how he felt anyway. “My goal in life. Is to travel the world to find out what is lying in Al Spar Munda. Al Spar Munda is terminology for uncharted territory. People have gone there, but they have never returned. It’s infamous among sailors, pirates, and travelers. Even Alabaster here won’t go there. For the longest, I’ve planned on daring to go. But I can’t go it alone, it’s dangerous. My plan was to find my brother and father, who set out years ago and force them to be a part of my crew. Then we’d see it together. We’d be family like we used to be. I’d have them again and they’d have me. And we’d be the first adventurers to tell the tale of how we conquered one of the sea’s greatest mysteries.”

“Why Mr.Crest!” She exclaimed. “That sounds like a wonderful dream.”

Crest turned his head. “Maybe, but that’s all it is. A dream. And I’ll hear no more about it.” He got up. “That aside. I don’t care what Lou says. You’re free to stay here. And if he says otherwise I’ll fight him on it.” Crest lightly pushed Lou teasingly. “Anyway, I’m feeling a bit tired. Alabaster, it was nice seeing you.” He shook his friend’s hand. “I’m going upstairs to take a rest. I’ll get up to lock the door when you guys’ leave.”

Crest headed up the stairs leaving the gang in silence. What a shame. No one said anything, but everyone pitied him, just a tiny bit.

The mysterious girl held her head low. “He’s so sad.” She said feeling particularly sad herself. “Why is it so hard for someone to do, what they want to do? I don’t understand, it’s right there waiting for them.”

Borka, didn’t exactly know either. But she had come up with a reason in her head all the same. She expressed her idea on the matter. “I think it’s because he’s afraid. Crest is someone that has lost many things, many important people in his life. And it may be comfortable for him to hold on to the only remaining people he has left. Us. He protects us day to day, and this simple life has been all he’s ever known. Don’t hold it against him…..he’s sensitive, and he detests failure.”

The mysterious girl breathed a heavy breath. Reality is often less romantic than one might hope. Her rescuer wasn’t some paragon of divinity…..or even a monster…..he was just a man. A man with a broken heart.