The Ribbon at Arms pub is a quaint pub in a one pub town, like so many that line the road between the moon and the sea, with its fine mead, hearty stew and a host of regulars who warm the stools. The evening began as most do at the Ribbon at Arms, with a welcoming firelight playing on the dark paneled walls, and a heady din permeating the warm and cozy air. Corrin was seated at the table, his table, directly adjacent to the roaring hearth, ready to share a pint of ale and a rambling story with anyone willing to lend an ear, or not savvy enough to avoid eye contact. Daphne, the Inn keeper’s young daughter, was going about her work as a barmaid in an adept, yet perfunctory manor, obviously not stimulated by the menial tasks she had grown up performing, and clearly longing for more from her life. In fact, her mind may have been completely preoccupied with something else entirely on this particular evening.
Along with the pub’s usual cast of character’s there were a few new faces, passers through town, stopping for a warm meal and a chance to lay their head on a soft pillow for the night. In a dark corner of the pub, at a solitary table sat Araxi, a wise and travelled Elf who preferred the company of herself and longed to be home, at her cottage deep in the woods, but instead found herself spending the night in Ribbon at Arms before heading up the road to the university in the morning.
Another stranger, Ulfineas, had unwittingly been snared by Corrin. Ulfineas was young, for a half-elf, and despite the obvious signs of learning and wisdom, it was clear he was rather naïve about the world at large. He may have been travelling on his own for the first time in his life, and thus didn’t know any better than to avoid the table in a pub adjacent to the fire.
Ulfineas was settling into a second horn of mead and the third act of one of Corrin’s epic meanderings, when all of a sudden, a woman broke through the front door of the pub, obviously distraught, yelling something about a magic lamp having been stolen from her home. At the entrance of this wild woman, Araxi shrank a little deeper into the shadows, having no energy to deal with the petulant whining of an entitled human, such as the one now screaming in the doorway. Ulfineas, tired of piecing together the point of Corrin’s pointless story, and looking for a distraction, turned towards Andromedia, perhaps a little too eagerly, and locked eyes with the hysterical woman. Surveying the room, Andromedia looked first towards her husband, who had clearly been patronizing the pub all evening, she looked at the eager stranger by the fire, she noticed the dark figure in the shadows and finally, pointing a figure at each of the unfamiliar faces in the pub, she shouted
“It was them, they stole the lamp”
What ensued was a tangle of accusations and recriminations from Andromedia, with an earnest plea for sense and clarity from Ulfineas, and a yawning half-effort to excuse herself from Araxi—which only infuriated Andromedia even further. The excitement in the pub was reaching a boiling point. Andromedia’s husband Arthur was called to defend his wife’s honor and made a move to shove Ulfineas, only to find himself tumbling towards the sticky floor of the pub a moment later after a retaliatory push from the stranger.
While all of the excitement was occurring at the front of the house, Daphne was trying to quietly slink into the background, perhaps fearing that Andromedia’s accusations might find her next. Realizing that things might go from bad to worse however; when Arthur hit the floor, Daphne moved forward and tried to make peace between a woman whom she clearly had little respect for, and two strangers whom she hardly knew. With her husband on the floor, and sensing a loss of advantage, Andromedia eventually listened to reason and was talked down from her hysteria.
Under the sage guidance of Araxi, who had taken charge of deescalating the situation, it was decided that the two strangers in the pub would recover the lamp within the next 24 hours, lest they face an investigation from the sheriff of Twillingsby. Normally, this was just the sort of petty entanglement Araxi tried to avoid, but calculating her options, she had decided that it might actually be easier to simply find and return the lamp, than have to deal with any ensuing investigation. Besides, she felt like she might have a pretty good idea of where to start looking for the lamp anyway.
Once the uproar had died down, Araxi noticed Daphne quietly slide out of the front door of the pub.
“We have to follow her” she said to Ulfineas, almost one syllable at a time.
Clearly, she had to speak slow to the youngling, as he had missed what was so painfully clear to her—Daphne had taken the lamp, or at least she knew the whereabouts of it, and following Daphne was the key to remedying this inconvenience—possibly in time to get a solid night of rest.
Araxi and Ulfineas began following Daphne out of town and to the edge of the dark wood. Daphne was not exceptional at hiding her tracks, and the two strangers were making no real effort to conceal their pursuit. It wasn’t long before the three of them came face to face in the moonlight, in what Araxi hoped wouldn’t be a tedious and tiresome encounter.
After some playful back and forth, trying to suss out the truth of the situation, Araxi sensed an advantage—it was clear that this young woman yearned for an opportunity to escape the small town she had found herself stuck in, and Araxi clearly longed for her bed. And so, before long, a bargain was struck—if Daphne replaced the lamp without incident, she could accompany Araxi to the university. And since Ulfineas was travelling in no particular direction, with no particular purpose he could join this unlikely duo—a small adventure to sate the palates of the younglings. Besides, Daphne mentioned that the bargeman might be sweet on her, and a free trip up the river might have Araxi rid of these two even sooner.
Returning the lamp was an easy feat. In fact, some trickery on Daphne’s part had the lamp hanging on its rightful hook at Andromedia manor before the evening could even have been considered old. What’s more, Daphne’s trick with the chickens may have even impressed Araxi, just the tiniest little bit.
Back at the Inn, a plan was struck to meet the next morning, and set out for what Ulfineas and Daphne hoped might be a grand quest, and what Araxi hoped would be an uneventful two days on the road with her new travel companions.
