Author's Note: Due to holiday-related circumstances this chapter is shorter than planned, and will be updated tomorrow, once shown to my usual group of people who can actually write.
It was just before lunchtime that a half-neanderthal, a half-drow, and a money walked into a tavern on the docks; that is the half-neanderthal and the half-drow walked in and the monkey was still perched in the maw of the former's bag. It was quieter than usual, which meant that a few of the two-dozen tables were actually spare. The two went up to the bar, behind which stood an elven man with black hair and trimmed facial hair. His unmarked face implied that he'd scarce moved from the comfort of such a position, and reacted to the sight that moved towards him, though didn't seem too alarmed.
Fei produced a coin bag as they approached.
"Two tankards of mead my good man," she said as she pulled her coin bag from her belt. The man hesitated.
"Certainly," he said, holding comment for now.
One of the side effects of running a tavern at the edge of a port as cosmopolitan as Atlantis is that you tend to see all sorts pass through, and this wasn't the first half-drow to pass through, nor were they the most potentially hostile race to do so. Generally they were agreeable enough, and though he would never trust one, he had no problem accepting their coin so long as they caused him no quarrel. This one in particular seemed no cause for worry just yet. She had a cowed look about her and was keeping close to the barbarian girl, who was a whole other matter; why she should be here blank only knew, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know.
Daere avoided the looks the trio were getting, instead focusing on their drinks as they were served, watching the amber liquid fill the steel vessels. Fei paid and took an inaugral drink. Daere slowly put hers to her lips and tasted the nectar brew; it sang in her throat, and beckoned her to down it in one go, which she did. Fei and Shakespeare both gave her an amused look.
"Did you enjoy that?" Fei said.
"Oh yes, thank you," Daere said with a dual nod.
"Another three, please," Fei said to the barkeep, who was now serving another patron just down the bar; the two glanced their way The barkeep's instincts were beginning to ease up on these two; so long as they were in the business of drinking they shouldn't be any trouble. The patron, for his part, was always on the lookout for those who could match his drinking habits, and leant over to them.
"Say, would you two care to join me at my table?" He said. "My aquaintance and I could do with some company."
"Of course! Always good to meet new people," Fei said, having just been mentally resigning herself to being propped up by the bar for now. She turned to Daere.
"Are you alright with that?" She said.
"I... yes, yes I would, thank you," she said.
"Excellent!" Fei said, holding her hand out to the man. "I am Fei the Selgo, this is Daere, and this here is Shakespeare, my pet monkey."
"Nice to meet you," the man said. He was a human in roughly his late-twenties, with jet black hair in the sort of neat, respectable style one would see on a teacher or well-off merchant, and his friendly blue eyes looked at them through simple eyeglasses.
"Here you are, Professor," the barkeep said as he placed a full flagon in front of him.
"Professor, you say," Fei said. "Professor of what?"
"History," the man said. "I am Professor Nihilum, I'm on a visit from Oxford to the University here, he said. "What is the purpouse of your visit?"
"Cultural," Fei said. "To see the sights and the sounds."
"Well, you'll find none finer than the ones here."
"So I've heard; ah, thank you," Fei said as she produced coin to pay for the tankards that had just been place in front of them. Professor Nihilum picked up one.
"I'll take that for you," he said.
"Why thank you," Fei said. She took the rest and she and Daere followed Nihilum to a table near the back. There already was an elven person who, as opposed to the barkeep, resembled the old elves of Ealga's family; like with them, Fei didn't dare try and judge their gender off the bat.
"Hello there," she said, smiling as she put her tankards down and held a hand out to him. The elf seemed to have been born with a curled lip, and looked up from his papers in a manner that suggested that even that was beneath him; then he saw Fei and Daere.
"Are these... beings joining us, Professor?" they said. Their voice was largely masculine, though appearence-wise it was still up in the air. They had long golden hair, piercing silver eyes, and was dressed in the sort of finery you'd have to cut into miniature squares and travel across four continents in order to sell it, provided you could find a blade willing or able to cut it.
"Yes, I thought we could do with some company," Nihilum said.
"I take issue with that judgement," the elf said.
"Hello," Fei said, still greeting them with her teeth between sentences; "I'm Fei the Selgo, this is Daere, and this is Shakespeare, my pet monkey."
"What, may I ask, is a Selgo?" the elf said after a brief pause, in which time a sense of dread manifested itself within him as he started to suspect they were serious about staying, and remembered that he could no longer turn them into a gnat with a flick of the wrist.
"Oh it's Celtic, you wouldn't know it," Fei said with a wave of her hand. "So what's your name?"
"I am Praelon, a Prince of the Feywild," they said, drawing themselves up more than should have been possible from a tavern stool.
"The Feywild you say?" Fei said, then turned to Daere, who was bearing the brunt of Praelon's glare. "See, this place is so grand even they Feywildians come to visit."
"Feywildians!?" Praelon said with a tone normally reserved for one who has just done their business upon the tabletop. "My, you are a primitive," they said, letting forth a laugh that brought forth in Fei's mind the image of the wood club in her bag.
"So," Nihilum said to her, "have you come far?"
"Well, it depends how you're judging it," Fei said, "we are the three of us rather a long way from where we began, but none have had to walk very far, relatively speaking."
"How far have you come?" Shakespeare said to Nihilum.
"About as far as yourselves, I should guess," he said. "You're from Britannia, aren't you?"
"Yes, we're from the Celtic village in Preston," Shakespeare said, by now standing on a seat between Fei and Daere.
"Ah, Preston, such a fine town," Nihilum said.
"You know it?" Fei said.
"I was born there," Nihilum said after taking a drink.
"Ha! Such a small world!" Fei said, and raised her tankard. "A toast to those as fortunate as we are!" Nihilum and Daere matched her, the latter with a split-second lag.
"You are from there as well?" Nihilum said to her after taking his drink.
"Yes, I grew up not far from Fei and Shakespeare," she said, silently praying she could trust Fei and Shakespeare to play along; given the choice she wouldn't have told them as much as she did, and hoped to play her cards on her own terms henceforth.
"So, Praelon, do you have to walk far to get here from the Feywild?" Fei said. He looked up from his books with the same air of contempt at the idea of these mere mortals wishing to converse with him.
"I did not walk far, but then I did not plan to leave; you could say it was involuntary," he said. "But hear me, I shall return soon enough; if you do wish to assist me then you may be rewarded handsomely when I do." At that moment a sound reached them from an adjacent table that caused Praelon to shudder; an accent that, due to some parrallel evolution, was identical to what we would call Glaswegian.
"Ah, don't let that pansy fool ya'! He's just some jumped-up fairy with some fancy tricks!" The group turned their heads to the voice's owner, who by now had got up from his table and was nearly at theirs, tankard in hand.
Before we go on, I will note that it is widely accepted by now that the stereotypes surrounding the dwarven race are largely unjustified; that they are nothing like the crude, unkempt caricatures propagated by elven writers. That to view them as drunken, leacherous cowards who live in the mines, who evolved reduced height solely to allow them to more easily pinch or strike the bottoms of human or elven females, is simple racism. It has also been noted, by many of those same people, that it is simple probability that there are those who will naturally conform to all of the worst qualities attributed to their race, much to the embarrassment of their fellows, and those who write op-eds in newspapers attacking racist stereotypes; with the figure now standing in front of them, chance rolled snake eyes eight times in a row before setting fire to the table, assaulting the dealer, and removing its clothing from the waist down, before starting a fight with the Elvis impersonator at the bar.
It shall be noted for completion's sake that this dwarf had a beard.
"Excuse me!" Praelon said, his hands curling into the fists in a manner that resembled a closing flower, and with roughly the same kinetic energy stored within. "My fancy tricks, as you call them, could raize this entire city on a bad day!"
"Ay, and what kind'f aday is this?" the dwarf said.
There was a pause. "I've had better," Praelon said.
"Haven't we all, haven't we all?" the dwarf said as he sat down next to Daere. "Reorx; Reorx Shatteredhearth's me name, pleased to meet you all!" he said.
Professor Nihilum decided to take the lead; "Well, eh, I am Professor Nihilum of Oxford University, this-"
"Oh, a professor!" Very nice," Reorx said. "You not the sort to get yer' hands dirty, then?"
"Well, if needs be," Nihilum said.
"And you," Reorx said, turning to Fei and Daere. "Who might you be? You two beauties look the sort who'd do good down a mine shaft!"
"I am Fei the Selgo," she said, "Daere, Shakespeare."
"Nice t'meet you," he said, extending a callous hand to them. Fei got hers over with quickly, while Daere was more apprehensive, dwarves and drow being the two dominant races there, and typically not co-existing in peace.
"The pleasure is entirely yours," Praelon said.
"So, I hear you ladies are here on a visit," Reorx said, not paying any attention to Praelon. "I've recently arrived as well, what you say I show you a few of the sights?"
"Oh, we'll be fine," Fei said. "We have our trip planned out already. I'm sure Praelon here would love to take up your offer, though."
Nihilum had mostly invited Fei and Daere over for the company, though now he was just enjoying the entertainment as he took another drink. As he did so a voice came from behind him.
"Excuse me, could you perhaps spare a seat?" The group looked at the source to see what most of them knew as a dragonborn; 6'7", with an oval snout and light golden scales covering his form, and dressed in simple brown scholars' robes, decorated with items that marked him out as being of Indian descent, confirming what his accent already suggested, though buried under a mixture of Celtic and Saxon. Nihilum and Fei were both eager for the chance to ask from whence he came.