The Landlord

IV

"Hey, it's me," says a familiar voice, and I jerk awake in the near darkness.

"Wilfred?" I ask. He smiles.

"I saw the note you left for me," he says. "I thought I felt something between us."

"Wait, what did you do with the note?" I ask, ignoring his wild statement..

"What? I don't know. I think I still have it. Or maybe I dropped it." Then he changed his tone when I backed away some more. "Wait, what's happening here?"

"That note wasn't for you, dingus!" I shout, and the bard's face turns upside down almost instantaneously. I feel a little bad for him.

"It wasn't?" he asks, and then he sighs.

I think he's going to leave, but he doesn't. Instead, he shocks me entirely by pulling out a knife and holding it to my throat.

"Where's your gold then?" he demands.

Wow, so I turn him down, and he tries to rob me. What an opportunistic prick.

"Take the knife down and I'll tell you," I try, but he presses it closer to my throat and gets right in my face. His breath smells sour like stale whiskey.

"In the top cabinet above the stove," I tell him, feeling my body shaking.

"See, now that wasn't so hard."

He lets me go and goes to the cabinet, opening it. I listened to him rustle through whatever was in there as I reached under my bed for my dagger. This sonofabitch wasn't going to get away with trying to rob me when I should have been sleeping.

I charge him, swinging the dagger around. It hits the side of his head and slices at the top of his ear, causing him to bleed.

"Ow!" he whines. "That was my ear! Why would you do that?"

"You're trying to steal my gold, you twat!"

And then I kicked him square in the chest. Wilfred the bard fell backwards a bit, but he quickly caught himself and lunged his body forward with the knife. I swing the dagger and block him, but he tackles me and knocks me to the floor. Now he was on top of me, and I dropped the dagger as he tackled me, so I am without a weapon now. I throw my hands up and push his knife-wielding fist, trying to keep him from plunging the blade into my heart.

Death by bard, I think as my strength begins to weaken and the knife gets closer to my body. I can almost feel the tip against my rib.

"Get off her," shouts a familiar voice, and Dagmar kicks the bard in the stomach, knocking him off of me, and he rolls over towards the bed.

I roll out of the way and grab the knife that he dropped along with my dagger, and I stand there with each weapon at the ready. Dagmar has her sword ready as well.

"I concede," Wilfred says. "I shouldn't have tried to take your gold. I'll be on my way."

We watched him leave through the front door, and I was satisfied he was gone and out of my life for good.

"That was too close," I say. "Seriously. Dagmar ex machina over here. How did you know?"

"I found your note on my door. When I realized it was probably too late for the tavern, I went through the portal and found you here about to be murdered by that long haired bastard."

"Thank you," I say. "I've got a way for you to get in, but it's going to take some work from my new wizard friend, Jasior."

"It's going to be first light here soon," Dagmar informs me. "You should finish sleeping."