"I'm looking for the Lady of the Lake," he says as the beer mug touches his lips and he begins to take a sip and then slowly backs his head to drink more.
MV raised an eyebrow in question "why do you want to go there?"
It took him a moment to finish his beer and place it back down on the counter in front of him. He turns his head and points to the far wall. A poster of a horribly sketched out fiend with a reward lettering in bold letters is what his finger points to.
Chip grimaces, "you sure you're up to it?"
"You shouldn't go, Rikko. You have bad luck," advices MV with her arms crossed, worry etched in her pale face.
For Rikko, it is a bit of a confusion and perturbed feelings mixed that she knew of him. Spoke as if she had known everything about him. And yet he never saw her in his life.
"I think I can handle myself, milady," he reassures her. Weird. Absolutely weird he thinks.
Chip sighs and points past him. His gaze follows where she is pointing, to the door.
"It is said you should follow the mist. It will take you where you want to go…" she slams her small hands on the counter, "but you must be careful, Rikko!"
Rikko only nods once and gets up from his chair and makes sure everything he needs is tight to him. He was after all, going to venture back into the forest, he just knew so well to navigate.
As the rain subsides, he feels he isn't alone. The birds were dreadfully quiet. He continues anyway until he does see a mist different than what he has been navigating. He examines the dirt as he bends to touch it. Soft, cold and overly wet. But as he slowly looked at the horizon he noticed there were firm footprints of boots within the dirt. He grunts. He needs to hurry if he is to claim the reward.
But, as luck would have it, which he didn't have any because fortune was just that cruel, someone did beat him to his target.
"Well… shit…"he curses softly, removing his hood from his head and looking at the corpse in front of him by the lake. He checks the dreadful being. Throat cut to the point of her head almost coming completely off.
"Careful," comes a soft airy voice full of humor. "If you kiss her, she will awake again."
He drops the corpse quickly and looks at the incoming shadow through the mist and it reveals to be a very small petite woman.
"You shouldn't be here, lad."
"Well neither should ye," he raises an eyebrow. Telling him where he should or shouldn't be pft. The audacity.
She smiles, "is it odd for a small lady to come and make sure people are safe?" She goes to inspect the corpse.
"No," he thinks better of it, "not exactly…"
"Was this your claim?" she asked as she took the head off completely, put it in a brown straw bag and pulled the strings. Her face contorted into disgust.
"It would have been. Ye beat me to it," he looks to side in disappointment.
"Wanna split the reward?" she raises the bag over her shoulder and with it she turns part way to look at him.
"Why would ye split the reward with a complete stranger?"
She only smiles at him, "less reason for bandits to want to kill me don't you think? Do me the favor and get half. You came all the way out here, it's the least I can do for taking your claim."
He thinks it over, "how about I get more than half then? I did come all the way out here and wasn't told someone else was taking the claim…"
She begins to walk in the direction of where the lone tavern was.
She shrugs, "that's fine by me. I don't mind. If you feel like you deserve more, go for it. But leave something for me to give back to the people."
Rikko pauses and tilts his head to the side in earnest curiosity. "It's not for ye to keep?" he asks as he catches up to her again.
She shakes her head, "I don't need it. But the people do."
They reach the tavern and she opens the door with a slam, alerting everyone to her presence. She walks through the door, Rikko slowly walking behind her and watches as she places the bag that contained the head on the counter. Chip wasn't happy about that.
"Get that disgusting thing off of my counter," she huffs in displeasure.
"Sorry, Chip, I just came to drop this off and claim the reward," she says in apology as she dusts her hands off. "MV could you get the owner?"
MV the gnome nods and walks into the back and shortly comes with the owner of the tavern.
"I got the head of the Lady of the Lake," she proclaims with hands on her hips.
The owner of the tavern opens up the bag and gags as he pulls away and closes the bag quickly. "What a dreadful thing," he waves away the bad smell from his nose. "Here," he digs into his makeshift apron and places a medium size bag in front of her, ringing coins inside.
She happily takes the bag and does a curtsy, "thank you kind sir. And with that, the debt is paid. My friends can come with me, yes?" her voice dripping of sweetness.
The tavern owner sighs in resignation, "yes. They are free to go."
"Yes!" shouts Chip in excitement and leaves the bar as does MV, a smile on her face as she's happy no longer helping Chip tend to the bar and can go on another adventure.
"Here," she says as she turns around and presents Rikko with the bag. "I took what I thought was fair. You take the rest."
"Thank ye…" he says with he shakes his head. "I was only joking before. I didn't do anything. Ye should keep it." He almost regretted saying that as her smile fell. Almost.
She sighs "why cant men just say what they mean," she grabs his hand and places the bag on his palm. "Just take it alright. A gift. You wouldn't turn down a gift from a lady would you?"
He looks down and smiles shaking his head, "no. I suppose not."
And she smiles again. That smile that says thank you.
"Good! Then I'm off! See ya around!" she half salutes him and walks out of the bar. But not before hearing her name from the Gnome known as Chip.
"Vivianna…" he whispers. What an odd character, he thinks and his eyes gaze back at the bag full of coins. "Guess I'll order wine," he says, nodding his head up and down in acceptance that wine is what he will have for the evening.