It was a rainy eve in Reymond’s Reach when Gavril and the rest of the party decided to stop for the night and rest, after one of their final adventures before heading toward the promised land of Rivermeet. The job had been a simple one; nothing fancy, nothing so grand as slaying rampaging monsters or anything of that sort. No, the butcher’s wife was in labor, and his child was coming soon. He had a delivery to run to the local tavern, a lot of the finest cuts of meat he had to offer. The butcher didn’t have much to offer, but suggested the tavern keeper would repay their kindness somehow. Gavril had agreed to shoulder the burden himself, having an idea of how the tavern’s proprietor might repay him for doing so.   Entering the establishment, a no-nonsense building of stone and wood and thatched roofing, Gavril took the satchel of meats from over his shoulder and approached the bar of the tavern, the thick-necked barkeep giving him an appraising look as he approached.   “The butcher sends his regards and an apology. His wife’s in labor,” Gavril explained. The tavern keeper, to his credit, seemed delighted.   “Ol’ Hal an’ his old lady been tryin’ fer years, at this point. Lady Luck be with them both that the child is hale and healthy,” the barkeep said, hands outstretched for the satchel Gavril offered. “He pay you for the trouble?”   “My friends and I didn’t want to take the coin of a man with a child on the way,” Gavril said. “Hal said you might repay me. I reckon I got an idea of how you can, if you don’t mind,” Gavril suggested.   “Name it, friend, and if I can, I will.”   “Show me how you cook. On the road, I cook for my friends, but we’re looking to settle down, and open a place kinda like this. Reckon I could learn a thing or two from a professional,” Gavril said.   “Well… the name’s Pavel, for starters. What’s yours?”   “Gavril,” Gavril returned, amicably.   “Well, Gav, reckon I could teach ya a thing or two about cookin’. Ain’t anythin’ super special I do, but it’s good home cookin’ nonetheless. C’mon ‘round the back ‘ere, the grill’s this way.”   Gavril did as he was instructed, following Pavel around the back of the bar and toward the kitchen. The kitchen here was nothing special, a wood-fired grill and stove. “First thing’s first,” Pavel began, taking up a pair of chunks of split wood. Gavril recognized the wood by sight, but he let Pavel explain nevertheless. “Hickory. Applewood. The two best woods ya can grill with. Gives the meat a nice flavor. Now what we got here is venison and beef,” he said, taking the wrapped cuts of meat from the satchel. “Hickory works swell with both. Applewood’s good for bacon, ham, that sort of thing. But experiment, if you got the sense for things. Now what we got here… is t-bone steaks,” he said, unwrapping one of the cuts of meat and slapping it down on the grill flat. “You wanna grill these till they’re nice an’ brown on the outside. Not too long now. You wanna have ‘em still red in the center, nice an’ juicy like. Too long and you dry out the meat. Now, for seasoning,” Pavel said, his hands moving to a cupboard near the grill, producing a satchel of herbs. “Rosemary. Cracked black peppercorns. Simple herbs and spices, but you blend the two together, and you get a lovely flavor combination. A little salt helps, too, grind it up nice and fine and sprinkle it over the meat as it grills.”   “What about the heat?” Gavril asked, as Pavel used a match to light the wood beneath the grill.   “Low and slow is the name of the game,” Pavel said. “You don’t want a roarin’ fire. Dries the meat out, burns the outside. You don’t want a char on steaks like these. How long ya here for, Gav?”   “Well, we’re here until the next ship toward the New Lands embarks. We’re headed toward Rivermeet.”   “Rivermeet, eh? The promised new land. Good luck going there. Next boat out that way embarks in three days. You gonna be stayin’ here?”   “If you got space for us.”   “First night’s free, for doin’ Hal a favor. Standard rate for the rest. You got nothin’ better to do, you can help me out in the kitchen during the day and evenin’s. Do a good enough job an’ I might throw in a free meal or two for ya and yer friends, alright?”   “Sounds more than fair, Pavel.”   “Here in Reymond’s Reach we look out for each other. You looked out for mine, and let him be with his wife while she was in need. Small town folk gotta stick together, y’know what I mean?” The meat sizzled on the grill, the scent filling the kitchen and wafting out into the tavern proper. “I mean I got a business to run, but I do well enough to pay ya back for your kindness.”   “I’m mighty grateful,” Gavril said, nodding to Pavel. Pavel grinned at him fondly, showing a missing tooth.   “My pleasure. Now, pay attention,” he said, flipping the steak with a pair of metal tongs. “You wanna cook it evenly. Mind the color on both sides. But don’t go flippin’ willy-nilly on it, let it sit for a bit, count it out if you gotta, but give it a good few minutes on each side. With your tongs, and I swear by a good set of tongs, you wanna give the meat a little poke when you’re done. Should have a little bit of give to it, but should also be a little firm. You’ll get a feel for it. When you’re learnin’, you can cut into it and check the middle if you wanna be careful, but, you wanna have it nice and red in the middle still. That’s called rare. Now, some folk like theirs done a little more’n that. They’re wrong, but if they want it more done than rare, you let it grill longer.”   Gavril nodded, following along and taking mental notes. “Grill anything other than just meat?”   “Potatoes. Leeks. Onions. Plenty of stuff. I’ll show ya how, don’t you worry none. By the time you an’ me part ways, you’ll be a buddin’ master of the grill, if you got anythin’ worth a damn ‘tween the ears.”   “We’ll certainly see,” Gavril said, cracking the slightest smirk as he turned his gaze to the grill.   He hadn’t been certain about how he would help with running what they’d already decided would be Caliban’s Haven, but here, with Pavel, he felt confident that in the next three days, he’d be at least passable with a grill. Maybe even better than that. As the days passed as they awaited the ship’s departure toward the new lands, Gavril helped Pavel in the kitchen, and learned the ways of the grill. Pavel remarked that Gavril was a fast learner, and that he would have no issues manning a grill in the tavern they would go on to found.

This was it; his last shirt from Sol’fannan was beyond repair.   Killian gave a heavy sigh as he ran his fingertips along the worn patches in the underarm area and along the collar… the collar which had looked so immaculate in that shop across the seas. The sigh deepened to a grimace as he spotted the stains that had never truly come out; yellow blood from those enormous singing spiders, red clay from three rain-drenched days hiking through what was laughably called a desert, and the green oil spilled on him by Gavril during that meal in Kingsmere. The fabric that had once felt like pure mana flowing through a river was now a litany of laundry crimes.   “I really liked this shirt.”   The words were said to nobody in particular. Caliban was focused on sharpening his sword, Lorigg was blindfolded and hanging upside down in a tree while practicing her lockpicking, Gavril was preparing a snare to catch some dinner, and Rizzex seemed like he was in some kind of meditative trance. It wasn’t as if they were indifferent to Killian’s mood, but they certainly had other matters that had greater focus than the half-dwarf’s wardrobe and fashion sense.   And that was the part that stung at his ego a bit. It wasn’t as if they mocked him for his peculiarities, but they certainly seemed to understand very few of them. The shirt wasn’t an emergency, but it was the sort of little luxury that helped Killian focus; and the last thing you wanted was a Wizard that went into an emergency unfocused. Ale weighs too much to be useful for long stretches in the Unclaimed Reaches, and the contents of a pipebox too easy for monsters to catch the scent of. Exotic clothing at least could be re-used and washed.   But as powerful as magic was and as important as Killian’s focus was, the spells needed to consistently wash and repair a shirt like this would be more of a burden than the degrees of discomfort that came from a ruined shirt. Now all that was left was to eliminate the distraction of a luxury that could not be regained.   The shirt got laid out onto the flat ground, and carefully the scale-accented hands of the half-dragon placed the tools of his trade around it. An amulet, a segmented bracer, a pair of wands, his whip; each catching the moonlight in a way that made them look otherworldly.   Slowly and carefully Killian ran his dagger first along stitch lines, then with slow surgical precision to remove the areas beyond all hope. Carefully he began to recite the words his father and his aunts had taught him; “Whatever the gods once made, now is remade. Whatever the hands of mortals have made will one day be made better. Whatever the spirits and powers of magic have wrought will always be humbled by a mind that sees truth in all things.” In the tongue of the Southern Dhal Dwarves the words rumbled, able to resonate and echo through the stone hallways and still be understood without fault. Out here in the wilderness it was like a gentle thunder in the distance to any that stopped to listen to the wizard.   And as the cuts were made the threads twisted and bound themselves, glowing faintly of a spell being woven as the shirt was unmade. The resulting scraps floated in the air once they had found a new shape that agreed with them, and danced over the other objects so carefully placed. The amulet was the first to whip its adamantine chain out; snagging cloth like tendrils of carnivorous vines and forming a glove with the amulet now on the back of the hand. Next the wands found themselves wrapped and secured in sheaths that would absorb all tarnishings into themselves. Finally the whip uncurled like a serpent, swaying and moving over the tattered dross that was left, burning them in blue flame and using them as fuel to extend the intricate runes on the many segments of the metal lash.   With the shirt gone, Killian wiped his hands. This was the way of things; the old reforged into something new. Hopefully Killian would be able to choose his own reforging, and whatever day Fate had chosen for that to happen approached ever closer whether he liked it or not.

Ba-bum   It happened in an instant. Rizzex always knew something could happen, but they had always come out on top.   Ba-bum   The dreaded lich lay in ashes. As far as evil undead monstrosities went, this one wasn’t too bad. Rizzex’s natural magic and Killian’s skills with the arcane were more than a match for the creature’s necrotic curses, while Gavril, Lorigg, and Caliban closed the distance and hacked the lich and its minions to pieces.   Ba-bum   Except for the archer. That last archer.   Ba-bum   Three arrows. It could have been any of them. But it was Caliban. Selfless, proud Caliban.   They hit, one after the other. Thuck, thuck, thuck. His armor, corrupted and weakened by the lich’s magic, failed to hold under the assault of just three arrows. They pierced his chest, right into his heart. Necrotic, poisonous, cursed arrowheads lodged themselves in the fighter’s chest.   Ba-bum   He was dead before he hit the ground.  

---

  “Hey, Rizzex!” a voice cut through Rizzex’s reverie, “Where do you want this?”   Rizzex jerked upright, surprised that he had lost track of time. He looked over at the courier that had just arrived. Jasper. That was his name. He had a few parcels: knick-knacks and important things that the others had ordered. Nothing Rizzex needed or, frankly, even knew what they were. He grunted and gestured to the table nearest the door.   The courier gratefully unloaded the packages. They must have been heavier than they looked. He sighed in relief and patted his hands together, trying to clear off some of the dirt and dust, then looked around the room.   “Gotta say, the place is comin’ together real nice,” the courier commented “Kinda homey.”   Rizzex smiled, a rare sight these days.  

---

  They’d made a cairn outside the abandoned keep the lich had claimed. Caliban had always said he didn’t care what lay beyond the veil of death; the only thing that mattered was the people living every day. Rizzex respected that. His clan had their own traditions and beliefs, of course, but there was a beautiful simplicity in Caliban’s outlook.   But there were no rites that Caliban had asked for. His death had never been part of the plan. The four survivors looked solemnly upon the pile of stones. This was reality, wasn’t it? The stones gave no answer, but stood as a testament to a life cut short.   They took his armor, weapons, and magic trinkets with them. Caliban wouldn’t have wanted them to go to waste, and so the group didn’t. They’d probably sell them, or, if they could, pass them off to a fellow adventurer. Caliban would have liked that.   There are a lot of things Caliban would have liked.   The four adventurers had loved him. And now he was gone.  

---

  “Oh right! Sign arrived, too,” Jasper said after a moment, “‘Ts out in the cart. Gonna need help wit’ tha’ one.”   Rizzex perked up immediately at the mention of the sign. He scampered behind the bar and rummaged a bit. A heavy thunk and the sound of a bunch of objects falling over followed by a grunt drew a curious look from Jasper. Rizzex stood up, hefting a heavy sword. He grunted assent to Jasper and followed him out of the building.   “A secund,” Rizzex said, before plunging the sword into the earth by the tavern entrance. He had specifically prepared this patch already; this was to be the sword’s final resting place. The lizard druid pushed and pulled on the sword a bit, nodding when he was convinced it was firmly rooted in place. He then retrieved the sign from the cart and attached it to the hilt of the sword. It had been specially made for this, the exacting specifications checked and rechecked by Rizzex. Nothing less than perfection would do for what he had in mind.   The sign was simple, yet solid wood. The design on the front was just two lines of text in a simple script: “Caliban’s Haven”. Behind the lines was a helmet, much like one Caliban had worn. It sat atop Caliban’s sword. Perhaps it wasn’t going to guide another adventurer to glory, but the blade would instead guide the weary to a sanctuary for all who need it.   Jasper stepped up beside Rizzex. “It do look nice, don’t it?” he said with a contented smile that quickly became a look of concern as he noticed Rizzex’s expression. He gently placed a hand on the lizard’s shoulder.   “Yes,” Rizzex managed to say through the tears.

Lorigg hummed as she stood behind the bar and polished bottles, even though they didn't really need it. Her hair was a lank brown today, despite her sunny yellow dress; trying to feel cheerful, but mostly just bored. The place was empty in the heat of the day, and logs laid stacked but unlit in the fireplace. Her ears perked up, however, at the sound of hooves and wagon wheels coming down the road. She listened carefully for a moment, estimating numbers, then pulled out an armful of mugs and started filling them from a barrel of dark, cold beer.   The rattling thundered up toward the yard outside, then quieted. A tall, dusty man pushed the door open and called out, "A round of beer for my - " then stopped mid-sentence at the sight. Lorigg had a dozen full mugs on a tray already, and walked it over to the large table. "Seems you're already on top of it."   "I've a dozen, here; is that enough?" she asked him.   "Fourteen, actually," he replied. "Ned Sligh, pleased to meet you."   "Lorigg Manyface. First round is on the house, for first-timers," she said with a wink. "Welcome to Caliban's Haven. Will your 'van be needing a place to sleep?"   She haggled with half her mind over the prices of supper and sleeping spots, while her hands drew two more beers and her attention focused on the travelers coming in through the door, having settled the horses and gear. Maybe, no, maybe, yes if he washes first, she looks nice, yes, ooh an archer - archers are good with their hands... She realized that the caravan master's face looked drawn at the numbers she was quoting, and cut the haggling. "Something wrong, Mr. Sligh?"   He looked embarassed. "Don't worry, I have the silver, it's just..." He looked out the door, and sighed. "We picked up some rare nuts and fruits from the woods, but this heat's starting to spoil the melons, and there's no ice maker in town. They won't make it downriver to the coast. It'll cut pretty severely into my profit for this trip, but I hate being a skinflint; my folk deserve decent food and such. I'll -"   "Wait right here!" Lorigg exclaimed, rushing through a door to the back room. She clambered past a thick crate, to a big pirate-looking treasure chest. She grunted with effort as she lifted the lid, rummaging around inside for a moment, then came back with a pair of sheathed daggers.   Ned raised one eyebrow. "Here," she said, pulling one halfway out of its sheath. Even from a few paces away, Mr. Sligh could feel the sharp pulse of cold. "We found them in an old fortress, with a weird cult. Never actually used them in a fight because you'd need thick gloves to keep your hands safe."   She offered it, but the caravan master made no move to take it. "I couldn't afford to pay you for such treasures."   "Sure you can," she grinned. "We'll just take a crate or two of that delicious fruit. Wait, listen," she interrupted as he started to protest. "It's not charity. I mean, sure, someone might pay some coin for it back in the capital, but it's not doing me any good sitting in a box. And besides. If all I wanted was money, I'd sell all my treasures and buy a castle, and some concubines to fill it."   He grimaced. "Okay. Thank you, then." He gingerly took the dagger and pushed it fully into the protective sheath. "Wasn't your hair brown a moment ago?" It was now long, blonde and wavy.   "We'll still take cash for supper, though," she said, walking to the back door and sticking her head out. "Hey! Gav! When you're done with that, go get a deer for supper, we have guests!"