The Adventure Shop–

The Adventure Shop: Part 37:

6/13/25

Dahlia paced as she looked at her comrades. Hazel was slowly becoming more weary and seemed to age in the time they had been there. The lack of sunlight and air seemed to be taking a toll on Hazel that Dahlia was not sure how to explain. Lothar and Aislin slowly lost their spark and playfulness. Both often sitting, almost statuesque for hours if not engaged in conversation. 

Laz was gone more often than he remained in the cell. Everytime he came back, he avoided the gaze and conversation of the others. Valentina was unconscious more often than not due to the venom that they constantly took from her snakes. All of them almost lifeless on her head. Valentina was removed in the morning and had not returned back to the cell. 

It was quiet. The others losing their spirits in the long delay of their capture and time with the corpse of their fellow adventurer only feet away. She shook her head. Moving to her bags, she searched, determined to change their fate. Dahlia had never given up solving a puzzle. Every riddle and puzzle could be solved if done correctly. Dahlia could do this too. There was a way to save them and get them away from the psychotic Siren. 

The sound of footsteps on the steps leading down to the lower deck sounded behind her. As she turned, her stomach soured. Valentina was drugged back to the cell with less care than a sack of potatoes. Without consideration, the two lackeys of the psychotic Siren tossed her back into the cell. 

Hazel rushed, as much as she could, to Valentina’s side and Dahlia gathered her store of medical supplies and medicinal herbs.

“Oh, you poor child,” Hazel cooed as she looked over Valentina’s current state. Dahlia handed Hazel the supplies requested and sat the rest down at Valentina’s side. Dahlia looked over Valentina’s features. Her parlor has slowly changed from a tan to a pale grey, her eyes looked sucken and her cheeks hollow. 

Valentina’s snakes hung limp around her face. Neither her nor her snakes were even an accidental threat in their current state. The snakes had small discolorations where they had been roughly handled when the venom was extracted. 

Hazel tended to Valentina’s wounds as Dahlia went to her bags to grab the food supplement she had been working on before they left for their adventure. No time like the present to test it out. 

Grabbing a cup with rationed water, she mixed the podwer into it and stirred. Breathing in deeply, she channeled her remaining magic enough to heat its contents as she held it in both of her hands.

“What are you doing, foolish girl? Are you trying to die?” Hazel reprimanded her.

“No, I am not using much. Just enough to hopefully ensure she survives this.”

A forced, tired laugh  brought her eyes down. Valentina was awake and had an exhausted smile. “It will take more than this to kill me. Gorgon’s have learned to outlive worse than what our enemies try to use to destroy us. We are a weed that cannot be destroyed. We will rise again and again.” She spoke as if reciting a mantra. 

“Yes, you have quite the spirit.” Hazel wrapped one snake after putting medicinal herbs where its scales were missing. 

“That is nothing. You should see a Gorgon that has been angered. It is said that one of our people stopped an army of over five hundred with just a single glance. Another was noted to have had their snakes cut and their eyes torn from their sockets, but still they took the remaining venom and spread it into the stew of the enemy. All the camp looked like children’s dolls, sitting in perfect positions, waiting to play. We do not give in easily to ill fortunes. We thrive in the hardships others shy away from.”

“Were you people always so strong?” Dahlia asked as she got a tiny tool to try to coax the snakes to take the mixed contents of the cup.

“No. We used to not go to war or even know struggle more than a harsh winter. But after adventurer’s started exploring, we were discovered and called monsters for our powers and features. We had to protect our borders as our people began to go missing. The elders realized too late what would occur if we did not try to protect what was ours. Many Gorgon were taken or killed before training in strategy and war took over our people’s lives. After we grew in our skills, the training began to include being prepared to withstand adverse conditions. My people became the monsters that the adventurer’s declared us to be.”

“And that is why you are not fond of them?”

“That is why for many years I hunted the bad ones who destroyed others, like they destroyed my people. I only stopped when Jubair brought me into his team. Instead of working alone, we worked together to correct wrongs. Even if we are, or were, essentially thieves.” 

Dahlia wondered what else there was to Valentina’s story. If she lost someone to drive her to hunt down the ones like the adventurer’s who destroyed her people from what they used to be.

“I am sorry you have experienced such heartache. Back in my day, there were many more adventurers who had blood lust and were driven by greed. They sought glory and gain. Damaging so many lives, lands, as well as creatures. The regulations with the training of new adventurer’s have begun to change the way adventurer’s take on quests, but there are those who still desire destruction and wealth,” Hazel commented.

“It is hard not to hate them. I’ve spent so many years being trained to be wary. Cautious. To ensure that no one destroyed me or my people, but I am tired. I am so tired of trying to protect myself. I’m so tired,” Valentina said, ending softly as she slowly lost consciousness. 

Hazel looked at Dahlia. “You did that correct? Otherwise, I have more concerns about her current state.”

“Yes, it is part of the nutrient mixture. And anti-inflammatory and a natural relaxant added in. I thought her body could use as much rest as we can give her.”

“Good. You are getting better with your apothecary skills.”

“Not nearly as skilled as you are, but if I have gained any knowledge, it has been from watching you.”

Hazel sighed. “Then I am thankful we have reunited and can try to make up for my sins.”

They stayed silent while Valentina slept on Hazel’s lap. Aislin and Lothar slept and it was quiet except for the sound of the creaking ship and rolling waves. 

“I don’t blame you, Hazel.” Hazel looked at her puzzled.

“I don’t blame you for creating the moonstone. At one point, it saved my life. Its purpose was pure, and it is not your fault that others perverted it for their own gain. Even if I was in some state of hiding, I have lived a good life because it has helped channel my overflow of magic. I have you to thank for my life, and you should not feel guilt over my death. If I die, it will be from the woman who tried to kill me for my power. You have been nothing but a mentor and friend to me all these years.”

Hazel pondered her words before deciding to tell her the story of how she came to find and protect Dahlia as best she could in the small town where they lived.

“I used to be a magical analyst. I studied magic with the purpose of improving its use, understanding its power, and magical objects. I was young and training under an advisor, but  in my curiosity, I experimented when I was not researching other projects assigned to me. As most young people are, I was foolish. Lost in the pursuit of answering my curiosities so that I never thought of the consequences. One of my experiments injured my colleague, and I began to pursue the study to help others with renewed interest in ensuring that I never hurt someone else again in the pursuit of a fool’s mission.”

She looked at Valentina as she thought through what she would say next. Dahlia waited, pondering how Hazel became a permanent fixture in her life. 

“When I heard the plight of those whose magic was too much at birth, I began to experiment with a way to help channel it–an object. It was called the moonstone, but it has no part of the moon. Its name comes from the glow of the light emitted from the stone when the magic flows through it. I began to initiate the moonstone project and facilitate the bond of the stone to the individual. For the ones I connected, it was something wonderful, but it would not last. It was right after I connected you to your stone that rumors spread of others going after the individuals who were connected to moonstones. That I created a conduit for others’ magic to be stolen. You were so very young that your family acquired additional protection for you by using one of the young squires that was serving in hopes of one day being a knight.”

Dahlia sighed. “I know. I severed that tie when I found out he got injured instead of me. I ran away after that. I was so spoiled I did not realize how difficult it would be to live a life outside of the palace. Borg found me. I don’t know what I would have done without him.”

“You broke your parents’ hearts when you left.”

“I couldn’t stay when all they had done for the kingdom was in danger because of me.”

“I know, child. That is why I went looking for you. After I tried to stop the others from losing their lives, you were the last one still living. The only one I hadn’t failed yet. I spent years looking for you. When I found you, I wanted to tell your parents, but how could I? I knew why you left. So for them and you, I decided to stay. I changed my practice from a study of magic to healing. I have not spoken to your parents since I left.”

“And you taught me. Without you and Borg, I would have died long before now. I was so young and foolish.”

“You did what you thought was right.”

“Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I had stayed. If I would have let them help me. Would have stayed to let them protect me, but I guess I can’t think that way.”

“You can grieve the past road and the future that might have been, but once you grieve, you must let it go. Thinking of what could have been will only hurt you now. Your present,” Hazel advised.

“That sounds like advice you should take yourself,” Dahlia pointed out. 

“Mine is a future not lived, but a past of shame and guilt of consequences that should have been mine.”

“You tried to help. You tried to protect us. The lives taken–and even mine–are not yours to carry. Our blood is not on your hands. It is on the people who decided that our magic was worth more than our lives. We would have died not long after birth.”

“How can you be so forgiving? You should hate me,” Hazel said, her voice shaking. 

Dahlia realized Hazel was crying. Tears rolling down her cheeks and soft sighs. Not even allowing herself to grieve her loss.

“How can I hate you? You saved my life more than once. You helped raise me to become the woman I am. You helped me learn my magic so I could one day open my shop. You have been there when I decided that I would start out a new life on my own. How can I hate you, Hazel?” 

“I don’t deserve you, child.”

“I don’t deserve you, but I am glad I have you. Even here. In this moment where we are out at sea with an unknown fate. We are together.”

“We are together. And it seems like our family has grown over the years.”

“Yes. And we have to protect them however we can now,” Dahlia said with new determination. “I need your help.”

“Anything, child. Let’s stop waiting for them to destroy us and find a way to stop this woman and save our family.”

“Let’s get to work.”