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.“Chin up, lad and listen to me.” At the suddenly serious tone in Bort’s voice, Ren did raise his head.Bort had an odd, angry, determined look.“Do you know how this tavern got its name?” Ren thought about it and shook his head.It had always been called the Rusty Cutter as long as he could remember.“I thought not.” Bort pointed to the front of the bar.“You’re familiar with the axe that hangs out front, I’m sure.” Ren nodded.“It’s all rusted, aye?”“Yes,” Ren answered, having no idea at what Bort was driving.“Well that, old son, is a named weapon.” Bort said with importance.“It is not!” Ren exclaimed before he could catch himself.“It most certainly is,” Bort answered.“How did it get there? Whose was it?” Ren felt as though some dramatic, invisible carpet had been swept from beneath his feet.“I put it out there, o’course.”“But you’re not a Hero.What were you doing with a named weapon?”“You’re right I’m not a Hero.” Bort said sullenly.“But I was.” Ren was thunderstruck, unable to speak.“Or at least I wanted to be,” Bort continued.“I was a bit like you, my head full o’stories and ideas.But instead of borrowin’ money from my local bloodsucker, I scrimped and saved until I had enough to buy my named weapon.Bein’ a Dwarf, I thought an axe would be appropriate and my cousin Delgar had made a fine axe named Astur’s Bite.”“What?” Ren interrupted.“Astur’s Bite was Samsar’s weapon! It was lost when he fell to Lithargan’s Krakken!”“I’m gettin’ to that,” Bort said, annoyed with Ren’s disbelief.“I was about to tell you it had come back into his possession.Delgar puts a homing enchantment on all his weapons so when the current owner perishes, as Heroes are too often wont to do, the weapon will return to him.He believes all the weapons he creates belong solely to him and he basically only rents them out.” Bort noticed Ren staring at the front of the tavern, as if he looked hard enough he’d be able to see the axe through the wall.“Anyway, I bought the damn thing and it was one of the biggest mistakes of my life.”“I don’t understand,” Ren replied, turning back to face the Dwarf.“That sodding weapon brought me nothing but sodding misery!” Bort paused, examining his memories.“Well, not ‘nothing but’.There were women.By Lax, there were plenty of women, but it ultimately led to me being tossed out of my homeland and excommunicated.I made my way here, found this abandoned inn, used the gold I still had left from adventurin’ to fix it up, hung that bastarding axe up out front and vowed never to wield it again.” Bort noticed the pained look on Ren’s face.“I’m serious, lad.Be thankful that dandy corpse took back yer little knives.Take it as a sign to get yer life back on track.”“Aw, Bort,” Ren said, taking a sip of his now warm ale, “with those swords my life was on track.Now it feels as if my life isn’t only off track, it’s got two broken wheels and it’s in a ditch somewhere.” He drained the rest of the tepid liquid from his mug.Bort snatched it up and poured him a fresh draft.“I gave you my last coin for the first one, you know.I can’t pay for this.” Ren pushed the mug back across the bar.Bort nodded.“Aye.This one’s on me, lad.Yer in bad shape and I’m sure y’can use it.We might be business associates but I still consider you a friend.” Bort pushed the mug back to its spot in front of the boy, who made no more argument.“What the hell am I going to do now?” Ren took a drink.“Nobody’ll hire a Hero without weapons.”“Aye.The bar was full o’ damsels and what-nots in various states of distress but there was a crop o’ heroes in here just finished with a battle against some dark force or another in a nearby town and they more or less paired up and took off.” Bort laid a hand on Ren’s shoulder, patted it once and moved off to help other customers.Ren sighed deeply and looked at Owl Man, who was staring at him.“What?” Ren asked the odd, skinny man.“Do you have some useful bit of advice as well? Everyone’s smarter than Renwald Mallorian?” The Owl Man stared at him with large round eyes astride his long, beaklike nose, his brows raised, wrinkling his forehead as though surprised, though Ren knew he wasn’t; the Owl Man just always looked that way.Ren turned his attention back to his drink.The Owl Man turned his attention back to the wall.Ren lost himself in the murmur of the slowly drunkening crowd, wondering what he could do to get his weapons back.He needed someone to pay him to be a Hero to earn enough to buy his weapons back, but he would have to buy his weapons back before anyone would be willing to pay him to be a Hero.Ren pondered the the vicious circular nature of his dilemma.He was so deep in thought he almost missed the entire bar growing quiet all at once.It is the deeply ingrained instinct of every respectable public drinker to turn toward the entrance of the drinking establishment when any manner of disruption occurs, and that’s exactly what Ren did, spinning on his stool, his drink poised halfway to his mouth when he saw something that caused his breath to catch in his throat.In the doorway stood the palest, most beautiful man Ren had every laid eyes on.The stranger almost glowed in the dank confines of the Cutter, which no one would have ever described as dank previously, but in comparison to this shining creature it seemed only too appropriate.After looking at the entire being, Ren scrutinized the creature from the ground up.He wore sandals with delicate silver straps, his pale toes capped with gleaming, pearlescent toe nails, perfectly groomed.The stranger wore loose pants that looked like silk of the palest blue and shimmered in the newly dankened light of the bar.A billowing white linen shirt was belted with a scarf that looked like something exotic from the Spaisien Isles, where Ren had heard they ate only rice and raw fish.Ren’s eyes traveled along the nape of the ivory neck, noting the various bits of silver jewelry generously draped about his body, matching the long silver hair that flowed to the young man’s belt.Ren felt his already snug tights growing even snugger as his eyes traced the line of the delicate jaw, moving up to the pale bow lips, and the thin, aquiline nose.Ren met the troubled silver eyes and knew that he wanted to help this creature, that in fact, everyone should want to help this creature, for he contained purity and light that were rare commodities in these times.If only Ren’s eyes had stopped there and not continued up to the odd horn in the center of his forehead that matched his toenails.Ren found it impossible to understand why someone who was obviously so troubled as this creature would be careless enough to wear some nonsensical false horn upon his forehead to draw undo attention.He also found it impossible to understand why his crotch felt suddenly wet until he noticed that he was pouring the remainder of his drink in that general direction.“Bloody hell!” Ren screamed, jumping off his stool.Bort rolled his eyes and tossed the boy a towel.Ren dabbed at his crotch, realizing how obvious his erection had become.Luckily the unbearable amount of embarrassment he labored under at the moment slowly took care of that.As Ren dabbed at the wet spot on his pants, the stranger, well, he walked but in such a graceful way that one could easily describe it as gliding, despite no one in the Cutter being particularly poetic.The fair-skinned young man approached the bar
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