Many, many stories I hear and tell and hear again, some of them I even read in books, start with the main character - I refuse to call them heroes - waking up in a strange place feeling like a piece of cow droppings.

Finding myself in such a place and situation is even less amusing than reading about it all the time.

"What happened?" I flinched as the headache and the yucky feeling in my mouth assured me that this was the sad reality of my life. Even though it had been the evening last I looked out of a window, now the sun was shining brightly, painfully, through a window near me. "Where am I?" I looked down on me. At least my pants were still there.

A strong hand that seemed to come out of nowhere dangled a chalice in front of me in which a strange liquid splashed around. "Drink this!" The tone of the voice speaking demanded absolute obedience. Before I even knew it, I held the chalice in my hand and drank up. I didn't even ask what was in it. The taste was... unknown to me. Actually, it tasted like nothing.

But somehow it clicked in my head again. Everything changed from one moment to the other. I saw my surroundings, the inside of a bedroom filled up with all sorts of trinkets, gear and other stuff. It was not my bedroom, but the other person in the room was very obviously the owner. He sat on a footstool next to a table which had an assortment of items on it that looked... strangely familiar to me. Not that I had seen them before, but I had heard about them in lore and legends.

Same went for the chalice... "The Cup of Healing," I recognized it in awe. "Blessed by the priests of Farundahl. It is said to be lost when the temple of the seven gods was razed by heathens back in 65." My headache was gone. My tongue didn't feel fuzzy anymore. I felt actually great. And I was holding a priceless artifact in my hand.

"Yeah, I used it to cure hangovers all the time, before Grigsmir, the God of Booze, blessed me with the power to resist all poisons and illnesses," Garbus explained in a much better mood than before. He sounded outright chatty. "Nowadays it just collects dust on the shelf."

I looked around the room. It was small, but impressive. I saw all sorts of weapons, like axes with a fiery glow, magic staffs with mysterious carvings and crystals embedded in them. I saw a morningstar that looked like it was dripping in green goo, though none of it dropped from it. But most of the weapons were swords. Long swords, short swords, two-handed swords, even a double-bladed sword - though admittedly it was a very impractical weapon and was probably just forged by someone with an ill sense of humor.

"What are you doing?" I asked curiously. 

Garbus made a gesture towards the table. "Preparing for the journey. If we want to succeed in it, we will need a few things."

I got up from the bed I was lying on and approached him and the table. "What makes you think that there is a 'we' involved in this entire matter? I never agreed to come with you."

Although his demeanor seemed friendly as he turned to me, and his voice sounded almost soothing, the words he spoke were anything but. "Since I saved you from a huge fight in the tavern and brought you here to recover, I imagine that you owe me something in return. Also: I paid you, and you accepted. It's not my fault that you got drunk and can't remember."

One of the perks of being a bard is the ability to read people and their intentions. So when I picked up this tiny little hint in his voice that there was more to it, I understood instantly. "Wait a minute! You boozed me up with something... you put it in my ale without me noticing it."

Garbus didn't even flinch or show any emotion. "I hope that you perform better than you perceive," he commented dryly.

"But... why? Why me?"

"Because I need you." He started to sort the items on the table again. "I need a bard who knows myths and legends. Who can tell me where to look for the things I need, and what to expect when I find it. Who knows his way around mythical artifacts." He held up a silver ring right in my face without looking at me myself. "You know what this is?"

"A Ring of Seeing What Cannot Be Seen," I answered. "Normally used by wizards to detect magical resonance and ley lines."

"You should take that one," Garbus suggested and offered it to me. "At least one of us should be able to see more than the naked eye."

I took the ring from him. It was quite a powerful tool, this one, and it was entrusted only to the most powerful and honorable sorcerers. "Thank you," I could only say as I put it on my ring finger. "How come you don't wear it then?"

Garbus let out a sigh of impatience. Before I could wonder what I had said to offend him, he grumbled: "Have you ever tried to put on more than two magic rings at the same time? I have. And it is not possible. Even though I have ten healthy fingers, and they are big enough for me to wear half a dozens rings on each. And when the rings have no magic, it is no problem at all. But magic rings? Only two - and not on the same hand. Can you explain that to me?"

I had never heard or thought about it before. Maybe because I never heard of anyone who had ever possessed more than two magic rings at the same time. Not even the king possessed two magic rings. He would be the first to claim all magic items that would be in his reach. So that was an issue that would never come up when bards talked. But... maybe there was an explanation to it.

"Can it be that the magic rings just... repel each other? That they can't be close to another ring because the magic in them creates some sort of... magic field?"

As an answer Garbus took two rings on the table and hit them together. They made a very silent clink. I nodded. So much for that then.

"Same goes with amulets," Garbus added, even more frustrated. "Of all the ones I collected over the years, I need to choose one to wear. But so many to pick from..." He stared at the table, pondering. "I guess it will be the one I am always wearing: the amulet that prevents deadly or serious injuries as long as the quest is not completed yet. It has saved my life many times, even when the situation was dire."

I looked at him puzzled. "I've heard of that one. But this is supposed to be bardic magic. I mean, does it even work?"

Garbus raised an eyebrow on the fact that I just demoted my bardic profession as one of tricksters and charlatans. "Believe me, it does." He took the amulet and put it around his neck. Then he took another ring. "Here, take this one, too. You might need it."

I looked at it as he put it in my hand. It was pretty, gold with a ruby and a fragile looking engraving around it. The legend around this particular trinket was one of the most requested stories during my performances. "The Ring of Righteousness. Puts immediate trust in its wearer, no matter his intention, and even enables him to make friends with wild animals." I looked back at him. "This artifact is one of a kind."

Garbus scoffed. "Hardly. I got three of those." He pointed at two other rings on the table that looked identical. At one of them he stopped for a moment. "Oh, this was actually quite funny. I found it in the belly of a terror beast in the woods of Baltruis. I guess that beast devoured the previous owner of that ring. So much for making animal friends, eh?"

The number of artifacts and trinkets collected in this very room made a suspicion rise up in me. "How many of those... artifacts did you collect from dead animals or men?"

Garbus pondered for a moment. "At least half of it, I guess. The other half I usually find in abandoned places in some chest or something. You know, when you explore deep caves, ruins of people long extinct, forgotten temples or old castles, you will always find an old chest somewhere, and it normally has gold and some sort of trinket in it." He sighed again. "That's why I'm so pissed about the king. What he gives me for a reward, I make three times by just going through the next cave in my journeys."

"So..." To get back to the matter at hand, and to at least look like I was actually contributing something to this quest of his, I changed the subject: "You are planning to explore a lot of caves and ruins and abandoned places?"

"I sometimes wish they were that abandoned." Garbus laughed. "Well, at least a bunch of undead creatures every once in a while is a nice change of pace."

"I bet," I responded to that, feeling a cold shiver running down my spine. "You have anything to keep the undead from our backs? If so, can I have it?"

He did. And a lot of other useful gear as well. When we finally departed in the middle of the day, both loaded with a fortune on priceless magical items, I felt a lot more confident than before. This might even work out, even though I still wasn't sure that I was the right man for this sort of quest. And I wished that he would pass his amulet onto me, the one that protected from serious and deadly wounds until the story was told. I had the feeling that this journey would not be as peaceful and quiet as the night in the tavern when we first met. And that included the fight.