The Seven Keys of Areid **COMPLETE**

Chapter I: Legend Has It

The raucous din of the tavern seemed muted as Adalira strained to hear the rasp of the elder's voice.

"Once, on this very day, a hundred and seventeen years ago,  our esteemed King Everlius imprisoned the young witch Maeve in the Labyrinth, behind seven doors, guarded by seven guardians with seven keys. The witch Maeve cursed our great leader and trapped him in a world of his own nightmares, locked in terror. And with the evil spell came immortality. The evil one herself is still trapped miles below our feet, and our beloved king is imprisoned in his nightmarish land until the witch is freed. Only then will the cretin that calls himself a steward step down, and the land of Areid will rejoice again."

Adalira sighed contentedly, leaning on the scuffed oaken table. She heard that story every week when the elder hunter came back for a drink and a hot meal after a week in the treacherous Eyphah Forest. It enchanted her, captivated her, entranced her. The story was so magical, with such potential. Yet nobody knew how to even get into the Labyrinth. Her pushy pale brown hair broke free of her headband and spilled down her back. She could hear the disgusted gasps of the people in the vicinity, and felt a strawberry blush come to her cheeks. Damn ears. She could never get anything done, not in this place.

The long, tapered points stuck out at least half a foot from her head, and Adalira swore that the stupid ears were the reason she was stuck working as a tavern wench in the Gryphon's Beak. Once upon a time elves had been nobility, honored, worthy of apprenticeship to a sorceress or a wizard. But now they were scum, untouchable and worthless. Nobody was old enough to remember exactly why there was such prejudice against them, only that elves were hated and that was that.

"You! Wench!" bellowed her drunken employer. "Go down to the stockrooms and bring up a casket of ale!"

Resignedly Adalira pushed herself off the table, thudded down the dark, creaky steps into the moist, dark stockroom. As she fumbled around for the nearest cask, her fingers brushed across something. Something similar to a doorknob. But why was it in the floor?

"GIRL! The ale!" the dwarf slurred from above. Adalira, despite carefully grooming herself over her twenty years to be always happy and attentive in the public eye, barely restrained a growl. How many times had she daydreamed about the day when she didn't need to work for the dwarf anymore and could throw him down the stairs without consequence? Too many to count. Forcing a smile to her face, although she was almost positive that the cretin of a creature could not see her, she chirped,

"On my way up, sir!"

She heard the dusty creaking of the floorboards as her master staggered away, presumably to guffaw about the appearances of women with his other drunken friends. The smile fell off Adalira's face as quickly as it had come, and she hoisted the barrel onto her back with ease, hidden door temporarily forgotten. After a few shaky steps, she managed to reach the top of the stairs with the wooden container of sloshing liquid. Blinking a little at the bright light and unmuffled sounds, she heaved the barrel down slightly behind the bar and near the tap, only to find herself being shoved to the floor. Landing hard, Adalira turned, hands, face, and ego smarting, to see who had shoved her. There stood her 'beloved' employer, smiling lecherously.

"This here, boys," the man chuckled to his equally, if not more, drunken cronies, "Is the rotten elf I've been employing."

The drunken dwarves giggled like schoolgirls. One of them burst,

"What d'you employ 'er for, huh?" The other men laughed and prodded Adalira's employer. Adalira felt a blush creeping into her cheeks.

"Oh, this, and that," the dwarf vaguely said. Adalira breathed a sigh of relief that the intoxication of the man hadn't reached the level of blurting out just what 'this and that' was. Evidentally her relief showed on her face, because the pallor of the dwarf darkened to a beetred and he grabbed her roughly by the front of her dress, hoisting her up into the air with strength one would not believe unless they had, in fact, witnessed the amount of weight a dwarf could bear. Dragging her towards the stairwell, he bellowed,

"Stay down here until you can control your face, filth!"

With that, Adalira felt herself tumbling painfully down the creaky, steep stairs.