Published:
January 23, 2025
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The sun is candy apple red, large, and low on the horizon. It's like that every fortnight. Rains fall only once a blue moon, but I find comfort in this. There's a consistency that I've grown to enjoy living securely within this walled city.
Today is Thursday, so I’m making bread. Sitting at an outdoor table, I enjoy a moment's respite before the crowds come. I knead the last scoop of brown sugar into my sweet loaf and manage to get it into the wood-burning oven just as I hear boots tromping on the stone floor.
"Coming!" I dust the flour from my apron and straighten my braids before entering the main room.
There, stooping beneath the beams of the low-slung ceiling, stands a half-orc barbarian. I sigh. Best to answer his questions and get him on his way.
Strangers have been coming to my biergarten to ask about the High Mage with rising frequency. The assortment is random: one a cleric, the other a half-elf druid, and the last three puffed-up paladins in spanking new armor. Besides the fact that they frighten my regulars and don't order any beer, they all, this barbarian included, ask the same question in the same way.
"Barkeep, what of this High Mage and the rumors of his hidden wealth?"
I am no fan of the High Mage or religion in general. I find the fervor with which this question is asked intimidating. I keep my opinions to myself, make bread and beer, and serve them to my patrons. It surprises me each time I give them an answer.
"The High Mage is the holiest of the holy. Any wealth he keeps is in the form of blessings for the kingdom of god." I shake my head and attempt to offer a pint when I am cut off.
"I seek his dragon gold. What secrets lay beneath the stone cross?" The voice I hear is always the same: a clipped baritone with no trace of an accent. No pause for breath. Were they breathing?
Once again, something within takes hold, and I give an automatic reply.
"Stone cross, you say? You can be trusted." I pull out from my bosom an ancient key etched with runes and attached to a golden chain. He takes it from me. I wonder, not for the first time, how I never felt it chafing my skin until he spoke.
I offer the barbarian bread and ale, but he turns swiftly and leaves like the men before him. I am left alone with an itch where the key once laid and a curious sense that time is on endless repeat. I no longer feel contentment upon returning to my chores.
The next human to walk in is a ranger with dark eyes and short-cropped, curly brown hair. He winks at me.
"What must a man do to get some 'brown sugar' around here?"
A warmth spreads all over my body and I have the sudden desire to shed every article of clothing. My moon cycles must be off. But then, I feel something shift in my nether region. Stirrings that have no place at work. This stranger has keys to a kingdom that I unlock for no man, elf, or orc. I start backing away. What devilish magic is this?
He repeats it as if I am deaf to his advances. Winks like there is something wrong with his eye. Runs his hand through his hair as if it makes him dashing.
Suddenly, I hear his thoughts and those of another person. They’re childlike, impatient, and quarrelsome.
"Kenny, this NPC’s hot! I did the cheat code. Why isn’t she naked?"
"You already said ‘brown sugar.’ You can’t just smash buttons, you know."
The room's empty; my regulars only arrive after sunset. I run behind the bar to hide before I am in some state of undress or “smashed” somehow, but my feet are slowed, each step murderously hard to navigate.
"What be this magic?" I grab a tankard and hurl it at his head, but I miss, and it clunks against the cobblestone floor.
"Magic? Do I have magic, Kenny? I thought I was a ranger.”
“Say this, dude.”
"My magic is in the bedroom. Join me,” says the foul creature garbed as a ranger. He starts going up the stairs, and my misguided feet follow on. My arms, ever obedient, hold onto the bar, and I am practically split into two.
"Dude, what is up with this NPC wench? She’s supposed to have sex with me!"
"No, Kenny, or, Dude, or whatever your name be. I’ll not have sex with you no matter what your magic. Unhand me, demon." My legs are my own again, and I run out back. The scent of caramelizing sugar gives me strength.
I grab the wooden paddle out of the oven. As the ranger steps into my garden, I hurl the steaming loaf, startling him to duck before backhanding him with the paddle. He collapses. His image turns into small squares of light just before he vanishes.
"Great! She killed me, Kenny. Do you know how long I’ve been working on this character? I lost all my XP."
Character, game, what be this hellscape?
I pick up the brown sugar loaf and dust it off. As I enter the main room, another man walks in, a low-rank thief, no less.
"Barkeep, what of this High Mage and—"
I smash the hot bread into his face and walk out the door. Perhaps I will get some dragon gold and leave this place. Unearth the secrets of Samson’s Gate. I’ll travel beyond the comfort of my biergarten and ditch the dull consistency of my day-to-day life.
"Stone cross!" I materialize a key.
I stride purposefully toward the Mage’s keep. If I come across a wayward knight or an orc ruffian, I'll use that 'brown sugar' these men are so fond of to dispatch them.
Time to be a player in my own game.

Copyright 2024 - SFS Publishing LLC
Jaheira's Biergarten
Wherein lies the keys to the kingdom
Nina Miller

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