Aurora Magazine 2019

on the guy’s face, to bring him back to a conscious state. He stirred but didn’t open his eyes until I gently prodded him with my foot. The minute he saw Mab, he sat up in a panic, trying to scoot further away. “Oh, calm down, Mauglath. I’m not going to hit you again. I think you’ve learned from your mistakes.” Mab pulled out a few rags from her pack, just as I spotted Nero come running in my direction. Nero was our groups only tiefling – a sort of demonic humanoid. To describe him in a nutshell, he was essentially a chaos sorcerer with a severe case of ADHD, who could cause some massive amount of chaos toward our foes, when he actually remembered that he knows more spells than fireball and lightning bolt. He stopped just short of the three of us, catching his breath. “Why is he bleeding,” was the first thing out of his mouth once he noticed the goliath, who still had blood on his face from the royal beating Mab gave him. “Because he’s an idiot.” Nero looked at me, in confusion, before speaking again. “I didn’t know that idiocy caused people to just start spontaneously bleeding from the nose.” Mab responded before I could. “Yeah, well it’s a new phe - nomenon.” Behind her, I pointed at her, then to Mauglath, before pounding my right hand into my left palm to help him under - stand the picture. “Oh,” was all he said as realization washed over him, and he unconsciously took a step away fromMab. “Right, I’m not too late, right? Please tell me Tiberius hasn’t already began briefing the group on what our next mission entails.” He seemed desperate for a no from me, in response to his question. I took pity on him. “You’re a bit late, but after what my new friend, Mab, tells him, he should be in much higher spirits. Come on, we’ll fill you in on the way back to the group It sure sounds like we’ve got our work cut out for us. I just hope there’s no dragon this time.” Nero nodded frantically in agreement to my sentiment as we followed Mab back inside, where the music, dancing, and overall high spirits had resumed; the calm before the storm. 77