The tea tasted like ash.
Maybe it was the lingering adrenaline from Borin's unnerving 'show and tell' session. Maybe it was the dawning realization that my carefully constructed anonymity was eroding faster than Aerthosian bridge foundations in a flash flood. Or maybe the Dragon's Leaf really was just offensively stale this time. Whatever the cause, the meagre comfort I usually derived from the overpriced brew was absent, replaced by a gritty residue of anxiety and irritation.
Borin knew. He didn't know what, but he knew that. That 'Bob the Hermit' was a poorly constructed stage set, and behind the dusty facade, something else resided. Something that recognized strange alloys and suppressed its analytical instincts. His patient, skeptical approach was infinitely more effective than the villagers' credulous awe or Gregor's bombastic fabrications. Borin was peeling the onion, layer by painstaking layer. Eventually, he'd reach the core. Or at least, something significantly weirder than dusty junk and bad tea.
And that gear. Intricate. Iridescent. Humming faintly with temporal resonance. Where did Borin really find it? Down by the forge? Unlikely. That kind of precise, non-terrestrial artifact doesn't just turn up next to discarded horseshoes. Had he been searching deliberately? Following clues? Or had it been planted for him to find? By whom? The gnome-thing? As another breadcrumb? Another test?
My alcove of mildewed solitude beckoned. Hiding seemed like the only rational response. Curl up amongst the potential fungal spores and wait for this entire annoying reality to resolve itself without my input.
But the thought of Borin possessing that gear… gnawed. A piece of potentially dangerous, misunderstood technology in the hands of someone intelligent but lacking the proper context? That was how unfortunate incidents started. Incidents involving unintended explosions, localized reality warping, or accidentally summoning things from dimensions best left undisturbed. While witnessing such an event unfold due to Borin's tinkering held a certain dark appeal (perhaps he'd accidentally turn Gregor into a newt?), the subsequent cleanup and potential extradimensional ramifications fell squarely into the category of 'Work I Retired To Avoid'.
Therefore, reluctantly, inaction wasn't a viable long-term strategy regarding the gear. But direct action – confronting Borin, attempting to confiscate the 'broken toy' – was equally fraught with peril and unwanted explanations.
Stalemate. Another wonderful feature of my Aerthosian retirement package. Perpetual, annoying stalemate.
Maybe some air? Less dust, perhaps slightly fewer lingering psychic emanations of idiocy? The back door led to the weed patch. The site of the Stonker's Delight disposal ceremony and occasional rodent thoroughfare. Relatively private. Minimal chance of encountering metaphorical bridge enthusiasts or shovel-wielding vigilantes.
I pushed open the creaking back door. Stepped out into the small, neglected space behind the shop. A few defiant weeds struggled against the compacted earth. The infamous pump stood sentinel, radiating rust and silent judgment. The air smelled vaguely of damp soil and distant livestock. Marginally better than the inside.
I paced aimlessly. Three steps one way, three steps back. A pathetic, self-contained orbit of frustration. My gaze drifted over the uninspiring scenery. Weeds. Dirt. Rusty pump. More weeds. A patch near the back wall where the moss seemed particularly… vigorous?
Wait. Moss. Elara's current obsession. I hadn't really paid attention to the moss behind my own shop. Too busy dealing with internal chaos and external annoyances.
My eyes narrowed. Focusing. Noticing details usually filtered out as irrelevant background noise.
The moss wasn't uniform. Different shades of green and grey, clinging to the damp foundation stones. Typical. But here, near the corner closest to where the gnome-thing might have lurked when it observed my sign 'repair'… the pattern was wrong.
Not dramatically wrong. Not like the pulsing crystal horror Elara described near Widow Meadowsweet's. This was subtle. Easily missed if you weren't actively looking for anomalies, or weren't a former cosmic entity with subconsciously heightened pattern recognition skills currently on high alert for weirdness.
One particular patch of common, fuzzy green moss didn't just grow. It grew in a near-perfect, mathematically precise Archimedean spiral.
Spirals occur in nature, certainly. Fern fronds unfurl. Shells coil. Galaxies rotate. But this level of precision, in this specific type of mundane moss growth, clinging to a random, damp stone wall in Oakhaven? Highly improbable. Statistically negligible. Unless influenced.
I crouched down. Examined it closer. Resisted the urge to perform a detailed bio-spectral analysis. Just looked. The spiral was flawless. Too flawless. Like it had been deliberately arranged, spore by spore. Or encouraged to grow along an infinitesimally small, pre-defined energy pathway.
This wasn't natural variance. This was… intentional.
My gaze swept the surrounding weeds. And I saw it. Half-hidden beneath a broad dock leaf. Small. Easily mistaken for a pebble or a clump of dried mud.
Another gear.
Not metal this time. This one was carved from wood. Dark, almost black wood, unnaturally hard and smooth, not native to this region as far as my passive botanical scans could tell. It was tiny, barely larger than my thumbnail. Intricately carved, with teeth suggesting it belonged to the same conceptual mechanism as the metal one Borin had found. Unlike the metal gear, this one seemed intact.
I picked it up cautiously. No obvious energy signature this time. No temporal resonance. Just… expertly crafted strangeness. Placed deliberately? Or dropped accidentally?
Near the spiral moss. Behind my shop. After Borin's visit with the other gear.
Coincidence? Possible. On any normal plane of existence, perhaps. But here? On Aerthos? Where coincidence seemed to be a code word for 'poorly disguised plot development'? Highly unlikely.
This felt like another breadcrumb. Another clue. Or another attempt to provoke a reaction.
The gnome-thing again? Signalling? Taunting? Leaving spare parts lying around like a careless (or deliberately provocative) interdimensional mechanic?
Why wood this time? Easier to fabricate locally? Less conspicuous energy signature than the metal alloy? A deliberate contrast? Or entirely unrelated?
The questions multiplied, buzzing annoyingly in my head like trapped cosmic flies. I had gone from wanting blissful inertia to unwillingly collecting anomalous gears and observing unnatural moss formations. My retirement was rapidly developing its own unwelcome sub-genre: Paranormal Hoarding and Cryptic Horticulture.
What to do with the gear? Keep it? Analyze it later? Destroy it? Leave it where I found it? Showing it to Borin seemed like a monumentally bad idea – confirming his suspicions that strange things were indeed afoot and that I was somehow connected. Showing it to Elara? She'd declare it the Sacred Cog of the Moss Mother and try to build a shrine around it.
No. Keep it. Quietly. Another data point in the annoying, accumulating file labelled "Oakhaven Weirdness Probably Related To Gnome-Things And Possibly My Fault".
I pocketed the tiny wooden gear. Stood up. Looked at the spiral moss again. It seemed… smug. Like it knew something I didn't. Which was entirely possible at this point.
My frustration levels spiked. I wasn't just annoyed anymore; I was starting to feel genuinely irritated by the game, whatever it was. The subtle clues, the near misses, the constant observation (both mundane and potentially supernatural). Someone, or something, was poking the sleeping cosmic entity with a pointy stick made of weird gears and anomalous plant life.
And the worst part? Part of me, the deeply buried analytical engine I tried so hard to ignore, was becoming… interested. Against my will. The puzzle pieces, however annoying and unrelated they seemed, were starting to form a vague, blurry picture. A picture I had absolutely no desire to see clearly.
This required more than tea. This required… contemplating drastic measures. Like actually leaving. Forgetting Aerthos, its suspicious blacksmiths, its enthusiastic apprentices, its metaphorical bridges, its overpriced tea, and its inexplicably geometrically patterned moss. Cut my losses. Find Dimension 734-Delta instead. Maybe they had decent scones and fewer reality-tampering garden pests.
But the thought of leaving Borin with one anomalous gear, and leaving whatever was creating spiral moss and dropping wooden cogs unchecked… felt vaguely irresponsible. Not my problem, technically. But unresolved anomalies had a nasty habit of festering. Escalating. Becoming actual problems requiring intervention later, usually at far greater inconvenience.
Dammit. Trapped. Trapped by lingering shreds of cosmic responsibility I thought I'd successfully excised. Trapped by curiosity I didn't want. Trapped by the sheer, grinding annoyance of it all.
I kicked viciously at a harmless weed near the spiral moss. It wilted slightly, possibly more from psychic pressure than physical impact. Felt marginally better. For about half a second.
Back inside. The shop felt smaller now. More claustrophobic. Less sanctuary, more cage. Surrounded by mysteries I didn't want to solve and expectations I couldn't fulfill.
The Hero Cushion stared up from the counter. Its stitched face seemed to mock me. 'Comfortable guarding,' the old woman had said. Right now, guarding felt anything but comfortable. It felt like being slowly, deliberately prodded towards something I desperately wanted to ignore.
And I still needed a reliable source of better tea. Priorities. Even amidst unfolding weirdness, priorities.