Riverrun Alley

In the gray noon light, Tockle and Grex approached a ramshackle building lit up on the inside by lights of many colors, as if it contained fires of blue, green, orange, and red at every corner. Dangling from the off-kilter front door was a sign reading Andros' Bar. Below the careful block letters of the tavern's name were messages scratched in three different languages. Tockle knew that all three said "All beings welcome. No credit." "Fertig!" Tock said, knocking his fist on the black wood of the bar in front of a tiny, squid-like being at the bar. The glistening, three-foot-tall creature was perched on a box on top of a bar stool. "It's good to see you again, my friend. You remember Grex, of the Hagurupk?"

A ringlet of eyes turned to Tockle, and then looked Grex up and down. Three of the creature's six tentacles waved in Tockle's direction, and then the creature picked up a shot glass of water and poured it over its oblong head. Fertig the Squibble was in a mood.

"Ten minutes late," Fertig squeaked, "and you bring this brute. Last time I saw him, he and his brother were harassing the local traders and avoiding paying work."

"Fertig," Grex said with the hint of a growl. "I changed. Growed up, huh?"

"Growed out is more like it, from the size of your gut."

"Okay boys," Tockle said, waving at Andros' shadow behind the bar. If Grex was the younger brother he never had, Fertig was surely the unruly uncle Tockle never got to know back on Quantogg. "Enough bickering. Lunch is on me today. And so are drinks, if you're so inclined."

Continued...

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