Elendar slowly rose from sleep and sat over the edge of his inn bed. Rubbing his eyes and head and trying to avoid looking at any of the interior torches which lit their room, the dark elf felt around for his coin purse. “… How much later did you stay up drinking?” he asked the Bosmer. “Drinking?!” exclaimed the wood elf, chortling a little as he moved his hand towards his leather belt. “I haven’t stopped, but, really, I’ve been working.” Peabody said this with a smile as he tossed Elendar’s coin purse to him, more full than it had been the previous night. At this the wood elf laughed and walked from their inn room to resupply for their travels that day.
The dark elf just sat there for a while with his head down in the palms of his hands. “My head feels like it’s been jumped on by a Dwemer Centurion,” he thought to himself.
Peabody was sitting at a table with some orcs in the corner of the tavern when Elendar finally made his way to breakfast. The inn keeper of The Greedy Gut, Mazabakh, whose plump stature seemed the likely origin of the business’ name, was a gruff yet considerate orc - likely only as a result of this inn being his singular source of income. The dark elf sat at the bar where Mazabakh had served coffee and plates of breakfast to whoever wanted to help themselves, when a commotion from the corner where Peabody was distracted Elendar from his meal. An orc was now standing and his chair had flown backwards several feet. He looked enraged. “You cheated,” the orc grunted. The wood elf sat calmly for a moment and then finally said, “Are you insinuating that I tricked you, orc? Which the Green knows wouldn’t be hard to do, by the way.” At this the orc rushed forward to grab Peabody by the neck, but the Bosmer in one swift motion stepped up onto the table and flipped over the brute, using the orc’s own shoulders and forward momentum to propel his flip and send the orc half running, half tripping over himself into a stack of crates nearby. The splintered wood and provisions littered the ground and completely enveloped the prone orc's body.
At this, Elendar just smirked and was content to continue with his breakfast as though nothing was going on. The inn keeper’s daughter, Mulzah, rushed from the adjoining hallway to see what the commotion was, only to see her father Mazabakh and a dark elf at the bar in front of the fire pretending nothing had happened, and a wood elf clapping his hands, as if to shake off dust, as another orc dragged out his now unconscious friend, not bothering to keep his voice down as he growled at the debilitated Orsimer. “You really are an idiot. I don’t know why I sit around while you get yourself into these types of..." The daughter, before turning on her heels and storming off, yelled across the room at her father, “and I suppose I’ll be cleaning that up, huh?!” Her disgruntled muttering could be heard growing more distant as she moved down the hall. By the time she was barely audible, Peabody joined Elendar at the bar. “Z’en’s bounty, that stodgy ol’orc nearly took my head off”, said Peabody with a chuckle as he ate the bread off of Elendar’s plate. The dark elf looked up at Peabody as the wood elf finished off the last of the Dunmer’s coffee for him. “So, what was that all about?” asked Elendar. “Well I offered to show him a magic trick, which consisted of making objects disappear, strictly golden objects of course” responded the Bosmer with a smug grin. “It seemed like you two were at a game,” replied the dark elf. “Ohh yes,” the Bosmer started, “well, I happened to acquire us an opportunistic detour for the day. A map of sorts. It was a game of chance, you see, where the chance for my new Orsimer friend was to lose his map, or lose his wits. It turned out that he wanted to lose both.” “Oh,” said Elendar, “and I suppose this map will lead us to coin?” The Bosmer smiled at this and said, “well, that, and hopefully something a bit more valuable.”
In truth, Peabody was not entirely sure what the map led to, though the orc seemed to think it was of great value. So with that, like slaughter fish on a swimmer, the Bosmer felt that it could be more valuable to the elves than to the orc which he took exception to. “Where does this map lead?” asked Elendar. “No idea,” said the wood elf as he flipped a coin to the inn keep. This response slightly disconcerted Elendar. When Peabody feigned aloofness, it was only because the idea of danger being sprung on Elendar when unaware seemed to humor the wood elf. However, the dark elf trusted him enough, and knew that any danger Peabody lined up was never insurmountable, at least not thus far.
The two Mer then prepared to set out from the great orc city of Orsinium, with only Peabody completely aware of where they were going. “Don’t look so worried Aussie, the Green will guide us, or whatever Three you prefer” Peabody said whilst encouragingly nudging his grey companion onto their beaten path. As the two wandered down the road, sounds of Peabody’s banter and Elendar’s slight remarks faded. Then all of a sudden, “THE ALE, WHERE’S THE ALE?!” Peabody exclaimed as Elendar laughed at him, “I am sure there is a tavern on our way, we always seem to stumble into one”.
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