The others did not need Banan to jinx them; they’d already made fair work of it themselves.

Their room was an exact mirror copy of the other, even if they didn’t know it. On one bed sat Balder, Gnom, and the two goblins, leaving Bauwls and Salman alone on the other. The atmosphere on the beds was night and day, as you can imagine. The goblins screamed at Gnom for getting them into such a situation, Gnom screamed at them for screaming at him, and Balder took their constructive criticism in silence.

Bauwls and Salman talked little, in stark contrast with the tussling compadres to their left. And there laid their first problem: they were on Salman’s left.

Closer to the door.

If they were to leave that moist, wretched place, Salman would have to come up with a plan to get past them and gain access to the door. This, of course, was easier said than done.

“Ma’am,” Salman said, looking to his half asleep bedmate. Her face showed a worrying lack of awareness of their situation.

“Mhm?”

“My legs are too short to reach the bookshelf. Could you please…?”

“I have a question.” Salman had dreaded something like this from the moment she’d woken up five seconds before.

“Could we focus on the task at hand, ma’am?”

“No, really, I have a question! Where are you from?”

Salman blanked. The truth was that the memory loss was only just beginning to wear off. He caught flashes more frequently all the time, the last of which was the face of a man in a modest robe.

“I was raised in middle Denn, as I recall. In a temple.”

“What kind of temple?” The mattress squelched as she rose.

“A small one.” He laughed. “Yes, a small one. It was a priest and I alone for weeks at a time. No, we didn’t get many visitors in that remote place. He was a father to me, I suppose. He took me in as a baby, a man raising a dwarf as his own. Never once did he complain. Not once. Not even in the coldest winters, when food was scarce enough for one.”

“You remember it?”

“It’s not a lesson you forget, even in the midst of the selfishness and greed of cityfolk.” He felt how the words must have sounded to the city dweller Bauwls but he made no amendment to them.

“Why did you leave?”

“That memory hasn’t returned, same as most. There are glimpses, but I cannot hold onto them. It’s strange, ma’am, that I can feel my friendship for the man but I cannot remember his name. I only just found his face again. The strangest of all is that I’ve forgotten which god we prayed to.”

“Doesn’t that mean that-”

“I know the implication, ma’am. The shelf, could you reach for the shelf?” Bauwls reached it and knocked it closer to them, spilling its books across the floor. There was nothing of use.